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SAMSON CARRYING THE GATES OF GAZA. 



THE GIANT JUDGE 



OR THE 



STORY OF SAMSON. 

BY REV. W. A. SCOTT, D.D., 

li 

OF SAN FRANCISCO. 



1 There will I build him 



A monument, 

With all his trophies hung, and acts enrolled 
In copious legend, or sweet lyric song. 
Thither shall all the valiant youth resort, 
And from his memory inflame their breasts 
To matchless valour, and adventures high : 
The virgins also shall, on feastful days, 
Yisit his tomb with flowers." — Samson Jgonistes. 




PHILADELPHIA: 

PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION. 

NO. 821 CHESTNUT STBEET. 






Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1858, by 

JAMES DUNLAP, Treas., 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District of 
Pennsylvania. 



STEREOTYPED BY JESPER HARDINO & SON, 
INQUIRER BUILDING, SOUTH THIRD STREET, PHILA. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Chap. I. The hero's WONDERFUL STORY TOLD, . . 11 

II. The heroic judges and their times, . . .21 

III. The story a revelation inspired, . . 29 

IV. Samson's parents — the hero promised, . . 49 
V. Christ in the theophanies of the old testa- 
ment, 69 

VI. The family sacrifice and conference, . 88 

VII. The life of the hero begun, . . . .97 

VIII. Samson's first loye — the lion fight, . . 109 

IX. SWEETNESS OUT OF THE STRONG, .... 121 

X. The wedding riddle and tragedy, . . 131 

XI. The judgment of the fire-brand foxes, . . 146 

XII. The jaw-bone slaughter, .... 158 

XIII. The dreadful relapse from etam, . . . 170 

XIV. Samson in delilah's lap, . . . . 181 
XV. A grist from the prison-mill of gaza, . . 192 

XVI. The final contest and tragedy, . . . 209 
XVII. The epilogue and its teachings, . . . 224 

(3) 



INTRODUCTION. 



Is this little volume I have a definite end in view. I candidly 
acknowledge that, with me, the reality of Bible histories is an 
indispensable condition to faith in the doctrines and precepts of 
Christianity. It is my purpose therefore, so far as the subject 
seems to come properly within the reach of these pages, to consider 
the history of Sarnson as a tnie history, explain its meaning, and 
apply its principles. Unless biblical memoirs are strictly true — a 
record of things as they were, and of facts as they did occur — if 
the men named are nations or myths, and not individuals — if 
the miracles wrought by Moses and Samson are mere natural 
phenomena or figures of speech ; then I have no confidence that 
the doctrines of the Bible are from God. 

I am well aware that some do not like the subject I have chosen 
— they would prefer Joseph or Daniel as a hero. Others are ready 
to pronounce the effort as useless — and some consider it as " an 
idle attempt to collect evidence," on a subject that does not admit 
of proof ; and others will charge me with maintaining most uncriti- 
cal, ignorant, unphilosophical, baseless assumptions in regard to 
the histories of the Bible, and the literal interpretation of the 
scriptures. But as Keil in his preface to Joshua expresses it, I 
am persuaded that " The great want of the Church, at the prasent 
day, is a clear comprehension of the meaning of the Old Testa- 
ment, in its fulness and purity, in order that the God of Israel may 
again be universally recognized as the eternal God, whose faithful- 
ness is unchangeable, the one living and true God, who performed 
all that he did to Israel for our instruction and salvation, having 
chosen Abraham and his seed to be his people, to preserve his reve- 
lations, that from him the whole world might receive salvation, and 
in him all the families of the earth be blessed." 

1* (5) 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

The great Augustine in his one hundred and sixtieth sermon is 
correct in saying most emphatically, Novum Testamentum in vetere 
velabatur : Yetus Testamentum in novo revelatur. " The New Testa- 
ment was veiled in the Old ; the Old Testament is revealed in the 
New." If the gospel of Jesus Christ is therefore the only way of 
salvation, the historical reality of the Old Testament must be fully 
established. It is true, that the good things of which in the old 
economy we have only the shadows, have come in all their precious 
realities : but it does not follow that the old economy is wholly 
obsolete. When a fond mother folds in her arms a living son 
returned from distant lands, or with honour from many a bloody 
field of battle, she does not indeed in the moment of transport turn 
from the living face to gaze on the cold picture. The artist may 
not choose to study his subject in twilight, when he may have it 
in the full blaze of day. And yet, that fond mother may by the 
help of the portrait discover some line of beauty in her son's face, 
which she had not observed without it : and the artist may find 
that some sharp and simple outlines of the mountain or of the 
palace ruins are brought much more impressively before his eye 
against a twilight sky than in the glare of day. The great truths 
of Christianity stand up boldly in the history of God's ancient 
people, just as the lofty headlauds of a dim and distant coast are 
seen from the sea ; though more clearly stated in the New Testa- 
ment. But the distant view is not without grandeur and import- 
ance. And as the best, and in fact the only way to remove dark- 
ness from a room, is to let in light, so it seems to us the best, if 
not the only way to save the Old Testament from rationalism and 
a Christless interpretation on the one hand, and the extravagan- 
cies of pietism on the other, is to promote its true understanding ; 
and in order to this we must vindicate its authenticity and come 
to its true interpretation. But this cannot be done by ignoring 
altogether the schools of Neological criticism, nor by allegorizing 
and finding types of Christ in everything. I am perfectly sure 
that in regard to modern science, historical discoveries, and anti- 
quarian researches, we may rest securely on the position of our 
distinguished countryman (Lieut. Maury): "I have always found," 
says he, " in my scientific studies, that when I could get the Bible 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

to say anything upon the subject, it afforded me a firm foundation 
to stand upon, and another round in the ladder by which I could 
safely ascend." 

Within the last fifty years, and even within less than half that 
period, wonderful progress has been made in nearly all the branches 
of sacred literature. Profound grammatical and lexicographical 
researches have made us better acquainted with the Hebrew and 
cognate tongues. The customs and institutions of Oriental nations 
are now quite familiar to us. Ancient writers and monumental 
records are interpreted with much more accuracy than in ages 
past. By being able to read the hieroglyphic records of the private 
and public life of the ancient Egyptians, we know more of " the 
court of the Pharaohs than we do of the Plantagenets." And 
these records afford important, though undesigned, confirmations of 
the historical verity of the Old Testameut, and enable us to under- 
stand many hitherto obscure Biblical passages and allusions. So 
numerous and important are the proofs and illustrations of the 
authenticity of the historical books of the Bible, gathered from the 
labours of modern missionaries and travellers in the East, and from 
the readings of the inscriptions on the monuments of the Nile, 
Tigris, and Euphrates, that our Bible dictionaries and commenta- 
ries will all have to be re-written. Many of them have been super- 
seded already. Important as they have been, I hope it will not be 
considered ungrateful in me to say, that the chief commentaries in 
our language of a former age, are destitute of the refreshing breath 
of science, and without the lights of such patient and thorough 
research into antiquity as characterizes our day. This was rather 
their misfortune than their fault. While we shall ever thank God 
for their able and pious labours, it is but true to say, that they 
wrote sermons about rather than expositions of the sacred text. 

Most of the old commentators are too much given to spiritual- 
izing rather than expounding the word of God. We cannot have 
too much of Christ in our pulpits ; but the spirit of our age calls 
also for historical and critical studies in order to the success ful nre- 
sentation of " Christ and him crucified." And if, in preaching 
from the sacred records, we dismember them, and in our zeal to 
find evangelical doctrines, fail to apprehend the mind of the Spirit, 



8 INTRODUCTION. 

then we do great injustice to revelation. We should avoid ex- 
tremes, for doubtless there is a way to avail ourselves of the results 
of modern criticism, so as to combine the orthodox faith of former 
ages with the science and ripened fruits of modern times. The 
wonderful discoveries of our day furnish such a weight of evidence 
in favour of the historic realities and accuracy of the divine records 
and of the literal fulfilment of prophecy, that they actually form 
a new and extensive class of Evidences for Christianity. These 
discoveries are, however, so recent, and so diversified and scattered, 
that they can hardly be said yet to be classified or arranged. Nor 
is this species of evidence by any means complete. But enough is 
known to convince candid and intelligent readers that the ancient 
historians and monumental records of the East do furnish us with 
remarkable illustrations of the sacred writers, and undesigned coin- 
cidences so striking, so numerous, and so minute, that it is difficult 
to escape from the conviction that the Bible books are both genuine 
and authentic. Let it be kept, however, distinctly in mind, that 
in the following pages there is no attempt to go over the whole 
field just referred to. By no means. I have not travelled out of 
the sacred record concerning Samson. I have only attempted to 
sum up and arrange together so much of the results of biblical 
researches as seemed to me to belong to the life of the Israeli tish 
judge. I am aware, moreover, that views and objections bearing 
upon the u Book of Judges" and the life of Samson have been put 
forth by Rosenmuller, Eichhorn, Maurer, Paulus, Strauss, and 
others, adverse to those defended in these pages, which I have not 
thought of sufficient importance or pertinency to be named at all, 
lest it should seem to the sturdy, honest Bible readers of our own 
country that we were fighting men of straw. And besides, if we 
have succeeded in vindicating and making good our interpretations, 
theirs must fall to the ground. 

I do not suppose it is a valid objection against publishing a 
book that other volumes on the same subject have preceded it. 
For every man has his own anointing, and no one else can do the 
work to which providence has called him. Many valuable com- 
mentaries and volumes of Bible Illustrations have been published, 
and those named in the following pages are especially recommended, 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

with the hope that if they are not already in every library and 
family, they soon will be. It is but justice to say, however, that 
I am not acquainted with a single work on the plan of this one, 
or that occupies the place it is designed to fill. In the prepara- 
tion of these chapters, I have endeavoured, if I may so express 
myself, to saturate my mind and heart with the spirit of the origi- 
nal text, and with the writings of the most approved critics and 
interpreters of it, and, as far as I was able, to exhaust them in 
whatever I deemed available for explaining and presenting in a 
brief way the true meaning of the narrative. I suppose it to be 
the duty of every conscientious interpreter of the word of God to 
study it, as the old divines express it, painfully, and to use freely 
the best helps within reach, for enabling them to show the people 
the way of salvation. The Hebrew has been carefully studied ; 
but as Hebrew Bibles are now within reach of all who desire to 
see the original, we have not printed it in our pages. We thought 
it best to present the edifice with as few signs of the scaffolding as 
were sufficient to give an idea how it was built. 

The collection of facts and customs from Bible Lands used as 
illustrations of the text have in most cases been verified by my own 
personal researches and observations in the East, and by the latest 
readings of oriental monuments, so far as they have any bearing on 
our narrative, I have sought to remove objections, and to bring 
home the truth. My aim is the conversion of the heart to God 
by pouring light upon it. And if it shall please God to bless the 
undertaking, to hlm be all the praise, through Jesus Christ. Amen. 



THE GIANT JUDGE. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE HERO'S STORY TOLD. 

u Jewish history is God's illuminated clock set in the dark steeple 
of time." 

" Most wondrous book ! bright candle of the Lord ! 
Star of Eternity ! The only star 
By which the bark of man could navigate 
The sea of life, and gain the coast of bliss 
Securely." 

Judges xiii — xvi. — And the children of Israel did evil 
again in the sight of the Lord ; and the Lord delivered them 
into the hand of the Philistines forty years. 

And there was a certain man of Zorah, of the family of 
the Danites, whose name was Manoah; and his wife was 
barren, and bare not. And the angel of the Lord appeared 
unto the woman, and said unto her, Behold now, thou art 
barren, and bearest not : but thou shalt conceive, and bear 
a son. Now therefore beware, I pray thee, and drink not 
wine nor strong drink, and eat not any unclean thing : for, 
lo, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son ) and no razor shall 
come on his head : for the child shall be a Nazarite unto 
God from the womb ; and he shall begin to deliver Israel 
out of the hand of the Philistines. Then the woman came 

(in 



12 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

and told her husband, saying, A man of God came unto me, 
and his countenance was like the countenance of an angel 
of God, very terrible : but I asked him not whence he was, 
neither told he me his name : but he said unto me, Behold, 
thou shalt conceive, and bear a son ; and now drink no wine 
nor strong drink, neither eat any unclean thing : for the 
child shall be a Nazarite to God from the womb to the day 
of his death. 

Then Manoah entreated the Lord, and said, my Lord, 
let the man of God which thou didst send come again unto 
us, and teach us what we shall do unto the child that shall 
be born. And God hearkened to the voice of Manoah ; and 
the angel of God came again unto the woman as she sat in 
the field : but Manoah her husband was not with her. And 
the woman made haste, and ran, and shewed her husband, 
and said unto him, Behold, the man hath appeared unto me, 
that came unto me the other day. And Manoah arose, and 
went after his wife, and came to the man, and said unto 
him, Art thou the man that spakest unto the woman ? And 
he said, I am. And Manoah said, Now let thy words come 
to pass. How shall we order the child, and how shall 
we do unto him ? And the angel of the Lord said unto 
Manoah, Of all that I said unto the woman let her beware. 
She may not eat of any thing that cometh of the vine, 
neither let her drink wine or strong drink, nor eat any un- 
clean thing : all that I commanded her let her observe. 
And Manoah said unto the angel of the Lord, I pray thee, 
let us detain thee, until we shall have made ready a kid for 
thee. And the angel of the Lord said unto Manoah, Though 
thou detain me, I will not eat of thy bread : and if thou 
wilt offer a burnt-offering, thou must offer it unto the Lord. 
For Manoah knew not that he was an angel of the Lord. 
And Manoah said unto the angel of the Lord, What is thy 

me, that when thy sayings come to pass we may do thee 



SCRIPTURAL NARRATIVE. 13 

honour ? And the angel of the Lord said unto him, Why 
askest thou thus after my name, seeing it is secret ? So 
Manoah took a kid with a meat-offering, and offered it upon 
a rock unto the Lord : and the angel did wondrously ; and 
Manoah and his wife looked on. For it came to pass, when 
the flame went up toward heaven from off the altar, that the 
angel of the Lord ascended in the flame of the altar. And 
Manoah and his wife looked on it, and fell on their faces to 
the ground. But the angel of the Lord did no more appear 
to Manoah and to his wife. Then Manoah knew that he was 
an angel of the Lord. And Manoah said unto his wife, 
We shall surely die, because we have seen God. But his 
wife said unto him, If the Lord were pleased to kill us, he 
would not have received a burnt-offering and a meat-offer- 
ing at our hands, neither would he have shewed us all these 
things, nor would as at this time have told us such things 
as these. 

And the woman bare a son, and called his name Samson ; 
and the child grew, and the Lord blessed him. And the 
Spirit of the Lord began to move him at times in the camp 
of Dan between Zorah and Eshtaol. 

And Samson went down to Timnath, and saw a woman 

in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines. And he 

came up, and told his father and his mother, and said, I 

have seen a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the 

Philistines : now therefore get her for me to wife. Then 

his father and his mother said unto him, Is there never a 

woman among the daughters of thy brethren, or among all 

my people, that thou goest to take a wife of the uncircum- 

cised Philistines ? And Samson said unto his father, Get 

her for me ; for she pleaseth me well. But his father and 

his mother knew not that it was of the Lord, that he sought 

an occasion against the Philistines : for at that time the 

Philistines had dominion over Israel. Then went Samson 
2 



14 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

down, and his father and his mother to Timnath, and came 
to the vineyards of Timnath : and, behold, a young lion 
roared against him. And the Spirit of the Lord came 
mightily upon him, and he rent him as he would have rent 
a kid, and he had nothing in his hand : but he told not his 
father or his mother what he had done. And he went down 
and talked with the woman ; and she pleased Samson well. 
And after a time he returned to take her, and he turned 
aside to see the carcass of the lion : and, behold, there was 
a swarm of bees and honey in the carcass of the lion. And 
he took thereof in his hands and went on eating, and came 
to his father and mother, and he gave them, and they did 
eat : but he told not them that he had taken the honey out 
of the carcass of the lion. So his father went down unto 
the woman : and Samson made there a feast ; for so used 
the young men to do. And it came to pass, when they saw 
him, that they brought thirty companions to be with him. 
And Samson said unto them, I will now put forth a riddle 
unto you : if ye can certainly declare it me within the seven 
days of the feast, and find it out, then I will give you thirty 
sheets and thirty change of garments : But if ye cannot 
declare it me, then shall ye give me thirty sheets and thirty 
change of garments. And they said unto him, Put forth 
thy riddle, that we may hear it. And he said unto them, 
Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong 
came forth sweetness. And they could not in three days 
expound the riddle. And it came to pass on the seventh 
day, that they said unto Samson's wife, Entice thy husband 
that he may declare unto us the riddle, lest we burn thee 
and thy father's house with fire : have ye called us to take 
that we have ? is it not so ? And Samson's wife wept be- 
fore him, and said, Thou dost but hate me, and lovest me 
not ) thou hast put forth a riddle unto the children of my 
people, and hast not told it me. And he said unto her. 



SCRIPTURAL NARRATIVE. 15 

Behold, I have not told it my father nor my mother, and 
shall I tell it thee ? And she wept before him the seven 
days, while their feast lasted : and it came to pass on the 
seventh day, that he told her, because she lay sore upon 
him : and she told the riddle to the children of her people. 
And the men of the city said unto him on the seventh day 
before the sun went down, What is sweeter than honey ? 
and what is stronger than a lion ? And he said unto them, 
If ye had not plowed with my heifer, ye had not found out 
my riddle. And the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and 
he went down to Ashkelon, and slew thirty men of them and 
took their spoil, and gave change of garments unto them 
which expounded the riddle. And his anger was kindled, 
and he went up to his father's house. But Samson's wife 
was given to his companion, whom he had used as his 
friend. 

But it came to pass within a while after, in the time of 
wheat harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a kid ; and 
he said, I will go in to my wife into the chamber. But her 
father would not suffer him to go in. And her father said, 
I verily thought that thou hadst utterly hated her; there- 
fore I gave her to thy companion : is not her younger sister 
fairer than she? take her, I pray thee, instead of her. 

And Samson said concerning them, Now shall I be more 
blameless than the Philistines, though I do them a displea- 
sure. And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, 
and took firebrands, and turned tail tc tail, and put a fire- 
brand in the midst between two tails. And when he had 
set the brands on fire, he let them go into the standing corn 
of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks, and also the 
standing corn, with the vineyards and olives. Then the 
Philistines said, Who hath done this ? And they answered, 
Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he had taken 



16 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

his wife, and given her to his companion. And the Philis- 
tines came up, and burnt her and her father with fire. 

And Samson said unto them, Though ye have done this, 
yet will I be avenged of you, and after that I will cease. 
And he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter : 
and he went down and dwelt in the top of the rock Etam. 

Then the Philistines went up, and pitched in Judah, and 
spread themselves in Lehi. And the men of Judah said, 
Why are ye come up against us ? And they answered, To 
bind Samson are we come up, to do to him as he hath done 
to us. Then three thousand men of Judah went to the top 
of the rock Etam, and said to Samson, Knowest thou not 
that the Philistines are rulers over us ? What is this that 
thou hast done unto us ? And he said unto them, As they 
did unto me, so have I done unto them. And they said 
unto him, We are come down to bind thee, that we may 
deliver thee into the hand of the Philistines. And Samson 
said unto them, Swear unto me, that ye will not fall upon 
me yourselves. And they spake unto him, saying, No j 
but we will bind thee fast, and deliver thee into their hand : 
but surely we will not kill thee. And they bound him with 
two new cords, and brought him up from the rock. 

And when he came unto Lehi, the Philistines shouted 
against him : and the Spirit of the Lord came mightily 
upon him, and the cords that were upon his arms became 
as flax that was burnt with fire, and his bands loosed from 
off his hands. And he found a new jawbone of an ass, and 
put forth his hand and took it, and slew a thousand men 
therewith. And Samson said, With the jawbone of an ass, 
heaps upon heaps, with the jaw of an ass have I slain a 
thousand men. And it came to pass, when he had made 
an end of speaking, that he cast away the jawbone out of 
his hand, and called that place Ramath-lehi. 

And he was sore athirst, and called on the Lord and 



SCRIPTURAL NARRATIVE. 17 

said, Thou hast given this great deliverance into the hand 
of thy servant : and now shall I die for thirst, and fall into 
the hand of the uncircumcised ? But God clave an hollow 
place that was in the jaw, and there came water thereout \ 
and when he had drunk, his spirit came again, and he re- 
vived : wherefore he called the name thereof En-hak-kore, 
which is in Lehi unto this day. And he judged Israel in 
the days of the Philistines twenty years. 

Then went Samson to Gaza, and saw there an harlot, and 
went in unto her. And it was told the Gazites, sayings 
Samson is come hither. And they compassed him in, and 
laid wait for him all night in the gate of the city, and were 
quiet all the night, saying, In the morning, when it is day, 
we shall kill him. And Samson lay till midnight, and 
arose at midnight, and took the doors of the gate of the 
city, and the two posts, and went away with them, bar and 
all, and put them upon his shoulders, and carried them up 
to the top of an hill that is before Hebron. 

And it came to pass afterwards, that he loved a woman 

in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah. And the 

lords of the Philistines came up unto her, and said unto 

her, Entice him, and see wherein his great strength lieth, 

and by what means we may prevail against him, that we 

may bind him to afflict him : and we will give thee every 

one of us eleven hundred pieces of silver. And Delilah 

said to Samson, Tell me, I pray thee, wherein thy great 

strength lieth, and wherewith thou mightest be bound to 

afflict thee. And Samson said unto her, If they bind me 

with seven green withs that were never dried, then shall 

I be weak, and be as another man. Then the lords of the 

Philistines brought up to her seven green withs which had 

not been dried, and she bound him with them. Now there 

were men lying in wait, abiding with her in the chamber. 

And she said unto him, The Philistines be upon thee, Saui- 
2* 



18 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

son. And he brake the withs, as a thread of tow is broken 
when it toucheth the fire. So his strength was not known. 
And Delilah said unto Samson, Behold, thou hast mocked 
me, and told me lies : now tell me, I pray thee, wherewith 
thou mightest be bound. And he said unto her, If they 
bind me fast with new ropes that never were occupied, then 
shall I be weak, and be as another man. Delilah therefore 
took new ropes, and bound him therewith, and said unto 
him, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And there 
were Hers in wait abiding in the chamber. And he brake 
them from off his arms like a thread. And Delilah said 
unto Samson, Hitherto thou hast mocked me, and told me 
lies : tell me wherewith thou mightest be bound. And he 
said unto her, If thou weavest the seven locks of my head 
with the web. And she fastened it with the pin, and said 
unto him, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And he 
awaked out of his sleep, and went away with the pin of the 
beam, and with the web. And she said unto him, How 
canst thou say, I love thee, when thine heart is not with 
me ? Thou hast mocked me these three times, and hast not 
told me wherein thy great strength lieth. And it came to 
pass, when she pressed him daily with her words, and urged 
him, so that his soul was vexed unto death, that he told 
her all his heart, and said unto her, There hath not come a 
razor upon mine head; for I have been a Nazarite unto 
God from my mother's womb : if I be shaven, then my 
strength will go from me, and I shall become weak, and be 
like any other man. And when Delilah saw that he had 
told her all his heart, she sent and called for the lords of 
the Philistines, saying, Come up this once, for he hath 
shewed me all his heart. Then the lords of the Philistines 
came up unto her, and brought money in their hand. And 
she made him sleep upon her knees ; and she called for a 
man, and she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his 



SCRIPTURAL NARRATIVE. 19 

head; and she began to afflict him, and his strength went 
from him. And she said, The Philistines be upon thee, 
Samson. And he awoke out of his sleep, and said, I will 
go out as at other times before, and shake myself. And he 
wist not that the Lord was departed from him. But the 
Philistines took him and put out his eyes, and brought him 
down to Gaza, and bound him with fetters of brass; and he 
did grind in the prison-house. 

Howbeit the hair of his head began to grow again after 
he was shaven. Then the lords of the Philistines gathered 
them together for to offer a great sacrifice unto Dagon their 
god, and to rejoice ; for they said, Our god hath delivered 
Samson our enemy into our hand. And when the people 
saw him, they praised their god : for they said, Our god 
hath delivered into our hands our enemy, and the destroyer 
of our country, which slew many of us. And it came to 
pass, when their hearts were merry, that they said, Call for 
Samson, that he may make us sport. And they called for 
Samson out of the prison-house ; and he made them sport : 
and they set him between the pillars. And Samson said 
unto the lad that held him by the hand, Suffer me that I 
may feel the pillars whereupon the house stand eth, that I 
may lean upon them. Now the house was full of men and 
women; and all the lords of the Philistines were there; 
and there were upon the roof about three thousand men and 
women, that beheld while Samson made sport. And Sam- 
son called unto the Lord, and said, Lord God, remember 
me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this 
once, God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philis- 
tines for my two eyes. And Samson took hold of the two 
middle pillars upon which the house stood, and on which it 
was borne up, of the one with his right hand, and of the 
other with his left. And Samson said, Let me die with the 
Philistines. And he bowed himself with all his might; 



20 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

and the house fell upon the lords, and upon all the people 
that were therein. So the dead which he slew at his death 
were more than they which he slew in his life. Then his 
brethren and all the house of his father came down, and 
took him and brought him up, and buried him between 
Zorah and Eshtaol in the burying-place of Manoah his fa- 
ther. And he judged Israel twenty years. 



THE HEROIC JUDGES AND THEIR TIMES. 21 



CHAPTER II. 

THE HEROIC JUDGES AND THEIR TIMES. 

" Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle, 

Are emblems of deeds that were done in their clime, 
Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle, 
Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime ?" 

Bride of Abydos. 

And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gid- 
eon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthah; of David also, and 
Samuel, and of the prophets : who through faith subdued kingdoms, 
wrought righteousness. * * * * And these all, having obtained a 
good report through faith, received not the promise : God having pro- 
vided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made 
perfect— Heb. xi. 32-40. 

As the life and exploits of Israel's Giant Judge are 
described in " the Book of Judges," and as he was himself 
one of the most remarkable of this extraordinary class of 
men, it may be well to say something of these heroic Judges 
and of their times. Their history is an important link in 
Israel's ancient story. For though some of the facts here 
recorded seem not to have a direct religious interest, still as 
fragments of family and national history, they are exceed- 
ingly valuable. It was important, at least until the Messiah 
should come, to preserve the distinctive tribal lines and 
history of the Hebrews. And even in our times, apparently 
unimportant facts recorded in the earlier books of the Bible 
have been of great value in ethnology and philology, and 
for the general history of mankind. 



22 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

la the history of the Judges, we have a striking picture 
of the disorder and dangers of a country without a well 
established government. In those days when the people 
had no "vision," that is, when they were without prophets 
to instruct them ; and when there was no government, but 
" every one did that which was right in his own eyes :" — 
then, "the highways were unoccupied, and the travellers 
walked through by-ways." There is no liberty, where there 
is no law. There is no protection for property " throughout 
the purple land, where law secures not life." 

The Hebrew word Shophetim, Judges, is from the verb to 
judge, discern, command, rule, execute punishment. In the 
East, judging and ruling were generally connected. And 
sitting in judgment is still one of the principal duties of an 
oriental sovereign. The term Judges, when used in the 
Bible in reference to those heroes that God raised up be- 
tween the days of Joshua and David to be the saviours of 
their country, is equivalent to Rulers. And this is the com- 
mon use of the term Judges, in the days of Samson, and up 
to the gift of a King. It appears from the life of Samuel, 
however, and also from Judges iv. 5, that these Judges did 
sometimes act as judges merely, and not as judges and ex- 
ecutioners of their own sentences. The main idea then of 
these Judges is not the literal one of a judge seated on a 
judicial bench, and pronouncing the sentence of the law in 
criminal cases. They were chief magistrates. The Judge 
for the time being was the head of the nation. Jehovah 
was the King ; the government was a Theocracy, and the 
Judges were his Lieutenant Generals, or his Deputies. 

The Judges of Israel were, however, neither hereditary, 
nor chosen by the people. They were in every case raised 
up on some extraordinary occasion to execute some divine 
judgment upon Israel's wicked oppressors, or to fulfil some 
specific mission. They kept no court, had no standing army, 



TIIE HEROIC JUDGES AND THEIR TIMES. 23 

and received no pay. They had neither the pomp, nor the 
ceremony usually attached to the head of a State. Nor had 
they the power to make any new laws, nor to change the old 
ones. Their mission was altogether a peculiar, a distinctive 
one. In the history of civil rulers they stand out in solitary 
prominence as Melchisedec does in the history of the priest- 
hood. Their only authority was to execute the laws, and 
effect such deliverance of the chosen people from their hea- 
then oppressors as God himself should direct. Officially, 
they were without father or mother and without offspring. 
They had no predecessors, and they left no successors. 

The government of the Judges continued about four hun- 
dred and fifty years. And if Samuel be considered as a 
prophet as well as a judge, and Eli a priest as well as a 
judge, we may consider Samson as the last of that peculiar 
order of governors. Samuel, it is true, judged Israel, but 
he did not begin to act as a judge till forty years of age, 
and during the greater part of that time, Saul was king. 
It is, therefore, with much propriety, that the " first book 
of Samuel is otherwise called the first book of Kings. " The 
history of Samson occupies four out of the twenty chap- 
ters of the book of Judges, and is more fully written out 
than that of any of the others. His history is surprising 
even in an extraordinary age. In several particulars he 
was the most distinguished of the Hebrew Judges. And 
though never at the head of an army, nor on a throne, nor 
prime minister to any earthly potentate, it were difficult, 
perhaps impossible, to name another Hebrew that loved his 
country with more fervid devotion, or served it with a more 
hearty good will, or who was a greater terror to its enemies. 
I know not that there is any biography so completely charac- 
teristic, or more tragical than his. It is full of stirring in- 
cidents and most marvellous achievements. His whole life 
consists of a good beginning pre-announced, and a relapse 



24 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

from early piety into a long, dark, and terrible conflict, in 
which we find a mother's piety and a father's faith in battle 
array with constitutional and besetting sins ; but at last they 
prevail, and the sun that shone on him in his youth shines 
on him in his old age and gilds his dying exploits with ter- 
rible glory. He seems to us like a volcano, continually 
struggling for an eruption. In him we have all the elements 
of an epic ; love, adventure, heroism, tragedy. Nor am I 
aware that any Bible character has lent to modern literature 
a greater amount of metaphor and comparison than the story 
of Samson. The " Samson Agonistes" of Milton has been 
pronounced by the highest authority to be " one of the noblest 
dramas in the English language." It reminds us of the 
mystic touches and shadowy grandeur of Rembrandt, while 
Rembrandt himself and Rubens, Guido, David, and Martin 
are indebted to this heroic Judge for several of their im- 
mortal pieces. 

I am aware that some look upon Samson merely as a strong 
man, just as they do upon Solomon as a wise man ; but find 
nothing supernatural in either. They forget that it was the 
special inspiration of the Almighty that taught Solomon 
wisdom above all other men. They do not consider that the 
moving of the Spirit of Jehovah gave extraordinary strength 
to Samson for special purposes. It does not appear that 
his stature or limbs were of gigantic proportions. His 
strength, on the contrary, was " hung in his hair," the 
weakest part of his physical frame, to show that it was the 
special gift of God. It is^ therefore, wholly in regard to his 
strength, I have called him the u Giant Judge of Israel." 
His peculiarities are not remarkable, because of any thing 
that we perceive foreign to fallen humanity in the kind or 
composition of his passions and besetting sins, but in the 
fierceness and greatness of their strength. Saul, the son of 
Kish, was of the people and. among them — he was of their 



THE HEROIC JUDGES AND THEIR TIMES. 25 

flesh and bones ; — but he was a head and shoulders above 
them. It is just so with Samson. Ordinary men now have 
the same besetting sins — passions of the same character, but 
they are diminutive in comparison with him ; and are with- 
out his supernatural strength. 

It must be confessed in the outset, that Samson's spiritual 
history is very skeleton-like. We have only a few time- 
worn fragments out of which to construct his inner man. 
Now and then, and sometimes after long and dreary inter- 
vals, and from out of heavy clouds and thick darkness, we 
catch a few rays of hope, and rejoice in some signs of a re- 
viving conscience and of the presence of God's Spirit. Pos- 
sibly no part of the Bible has given occasion for more rail- 
lery than the book of Judges. And perhaps no name in 
that book has given point to more infidel jests than that of 
Samson. " His character is indeed dark and almost inex- 
plicable. By none of the Judges of Israel did God work 
so many miracles, and yet by none were so many faults com- 
mitted/' As no Bible hero is so remarkable for strength, 
so none are so remarkable for weakness, as Samson. His 
faults and passions were like himself. The Apostle, how- 
ever, in Hebrews xi, settles the question as to his personal 
piety and salvation at last, by enrolling him in the list of 
heroes distinguished for faith and glorious deeds. But as 
an old writer has said, he must be looked upon as " rather 
a rough believer." A recent Scotch author (Rev. Dr. Bruce 
in his biography of Samson) divides his life into three peri- 
ods. The fast, his youth, when all was prosperous and he 
was truly pious. This period extends to his marriage, when 
his second period begins, which is marked by his fall, and is 
very dark. In which period, like David, he made sad ship- 
wreck of the faith — " and strangely enough from the very 
same blinding, and beguiling, and peculiarly brutalizing lust ; 
and yet like David also, and some others, he escaped at the 



26 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

last as by a hair's breadth — the Lord forgiveth his iniquity, 
whilst yet he took vengeance on his inventions/' The 
third period he denominates the period of his penitence, 
recovery, and triumphant death. This period, the revival of 
his graces and gifts as a child of God, begins with the grow- 
ing of his hair in the prison. This author dwells chiefly 
upon Samson's history as an illustration of christian experi- 
ence. He endeavours to illustrate the continual struggle 
between good and evil in the human soul, sometimes the one 
predominating, and then again the other, the evil drawing 
down its own punishment, and the good at last prevailing. 
He makes Samson a striking instance of u the delivery of 
the body to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the 
spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. " Now 
it is undoubtedly true, that the strugglings of " this mighty 
and marvellous Israelite," with his wild passions and his 
better resolutions — his conflicts with most hurtful lusts and 
convictions of duty, do well illustrate the Apostle's warfare 
between the flesh and the spirit ; but it may be fairly ques- 
tioned whether this is the main design of his history, as it 
is given to us. According to Dr. Bruce, Samson was not so 
much a type of Christ, as of the conscience of a believer 
quickened by his Spirit, and contending for the mastery over 
those carnal passions which are well represented by the 
tyrant and treacherous Philistines. I like not to dwell on 
Samson as a type of Christ. We must at least guard against 
removing him so far from us by reason of his uniqueness of 
character, as to forget that he was a man of like passions 
with ourselves. We must carefully discriminate in his life 
between what God moved him to do, and what his sinful pas- 
sions moved him to. I fear a disposition to neglect the Old 
Testament characterizes our times. True indeed, most peo- 
ple in Christendom suppose themselves well acquainted with 
the character of Samson. They at least know he is called 



THE HEROIC JUDGES AND THEIR TIMES. 27 

the strongest man, and that he killed a lion, slept in Delilah's 
lap, and killed a great many Philistines at his death. This 
they may know, and yet not be able to form a true estimate 
of his character, or draw from his history those important 
lessons, which it teaches. Doubtless many have read Sam- 
son's history just as they do that of u the Scottish Chiefs/' 
or of King Philip. They have found in Samson the won- 
derful deeds of an Ishmaelite, ever ready for a border fray, 
fiery and fierce, and of extraordinary strength, and nothing 
more. This were to lose very much of what the Holy Spirit 
certainly designed us to learn from this memoir. The Lord 
raised up this heroic Israelite for us. He threw into him a 
miraculous composition of strength and energy of passion, 
and called them forth in such a way as to make him our 
teacher. And besides being a hero, he was a believer, a child 
of God, a member of the body of Christ, his church, which 
is his kingdom. God raised him up for our learning, and 
made him, as it were, " a mirror or molten looking-glass/' in 
which we may see some of our own leading features truth- 
fully portrayed, only on an enlarged scale. And if we differ 
from him, or from other great sinners, who but God hath 
made us to differ ? If in any thing we are not so bad as 
others, it is not owing to ourselves, but to the sovereign 
grace of God. 

Let it be remembered, in studying such a biography as 
this of the Giant Judge of Israel, that we should not expect, 
and could not indeed have, any other than one that records 
infirmities and short comings, as well as virtues and heroic 
deeds. Samson was a man — a sinful man. His life and 
exploits are recorded in an honest, truth-telling memoir. 
This point comes up again in the next chapter in consider- 
ing the design and method upon which the earlier biblical 
memoirs were written. 

It is not to be inferred then by any means, that in making 



28 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

mention of Samson, the Apostle approved of all that he did. 
Nor indeed of any of the other champions of faith whom he 
names. All that he commends is his faith. All that he 
here speaks of is the faith of the ancients. It was not his 
purpose to give a full account of these worthies. He was 
not writing their history. He was not called upon in this 
connection to speak of their imperfections ; but to show that 
however great their faults may have been, they were remark- 
able for their confidence in God. By reciting this muster 
roll of the old champions of faith, the Apostle sought to 
awaken the courage of the Hebrew believers of his day, by 
bidding them remember what faith had achieved for men 
and women like them in ages past. 

"All these," the apostle says, "obtained a good report 
through faith." That is, on account of their confidence in 
God. They were accepted of him, and are commended by 
all the pious.. The procuring cause of pardon and accept- 
ance from the beginning, was the blood of the Lamb, slain 
from the foundation of the world. This they received by 
faith — not the reality, but the promise. They believed the 
promise as if it were fulfilled. They did not actually see 
its fulfilment, but they did look forward in perfect confidence 
to its fulfilment, and consequently received the blessings 
promised as if the great promise had actually been fulfilled. 

Lives of great men all remind us 

We can make our lives sublime, 
And departing, leave behind us 

Footprints on the sand of time. 
Footprints that perhaps another, 

Sailing o'er life's solemn main, 
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, 

Seeing, shall take heart again. 
Let us, then, be up and doing, 

With a heart for any fate ; 
Still achieving, still pursuing, 

Learn to labour and to wait. 

Longfellow's Psalm of Life. 



THE STORY A REVELATION INSPIRED. 29 



CHAPTER III. 

THE STORY A REVELATION INSPIRED. 

" This book, — this glorious hook, on every line 
Marked with the seal of high Divinity; 
On every leaf bedewed with drops of love 
Divine." 

Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. — 
2 Pet. i. 21. 

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doc- 
trine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness ; that 
the man of God [a christian man] may be perfect, thoroughly furnished 
unto all good works. — 2 Tim. iii. 16, 17. 

It is not the purpose of this chapter to consider the evi- 
dences of Christianity in general, nor to offer proofs of the 
inspiration of God in the Bible. Our undertaking is a more 
limited one. In the previous chapters, we have a wonder- 
ful story of heroic times. And though it is remarkable 
even in a collection of marvellous records, still it belongs to 
a series of biographies that we are accustomed to look upon 
with great reverence. In so far then as we may be able to 
explain in what sense the recorded story of the life and ex- 
ploits of Israel's Giant Judge is a revelation from God, made 
in a supernatural way, and transferred to human language 
by an extraordinary or miraculous degree of inspiration, we 
shall not only justify the reverence with which we are wont 
to treat this sacred story, but establish the claims of all the 

Bible biographies to a like respect. The story then, in 
3* 



30 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

hand, of the heroic Hebrew Judge — is it an inspired 
record, and on what plan, and for what purpose were such 
biblical memoirs written ? It is proper to consider these 
questions, since there are those who still assert that the 
Old Testament is either totally unconnected with the New, 
except by a mere chance, or that it has ceased to be of any 
importance. This assertion argues either ignorance, or a 
false conception of spiritual Christianity, or an inordinate 
zeal to support certain dogmatic views of religion. Still it 
is thrust upon us so often and with so much urgency, that 
it is well for us to consider the place of Bible biographies, 
especially of the earlier times, in the history of mankind. 

Why should we then as christians study the Old Testa- 
ment? 

I. In answering this question, it were perhaps enough to 
say, that the doctrines and precepts, principles and duties 
which are taught in and illustrated by the lives of Bible 
characters, are found to be the best manual in existence for 
developing and strengthening, refining, elevating, and giving 
expansion to our mental faculties. There is nothing equal 
to the theology of the Bible to strengthen and purify the 
human mind. The divinity of the Scottish Knox has given 
breadth and power to the Scottish mind. He gave Scot- 
land her schools and an open Bible, and Scotland has well 
improved his gifts. It is "from scenes like these," so 
touchingly described in the Cotter's Saturday Night, — " Old 
Scotia's grandeur springs, that makes her loved at home, 
revered abroad." And the Cotter's Saturday Night re- 
minds us that the late Mr. Hugh Miller, in one of his 
essays, which are his ablest productions, quotes with appro- 
bation, the remark of Gilbert Burns, brother of the poet, 
that " it was not from the parish school that the people of 
Scotland derived their higher education, but from the parish 
pulpits. It was to their ministers, not to their schoolmas- 



THE STORY A REVELATION INSPIRED. 31 

ters, that the Scotch owed both their sober and their severe 
thinking." " Never," continues Mr. Miller, " was the 
strong common sense of Gilbert Burns, which was as much 
a gift of nature as the genius of his brother, more unequi- 
vocally manifested than in his remark on the real source, 
whence the Scotch people had derived of old the tone of 
high moral sentiment by which they were characterized, 
and their severe semi-metaphysical cast of thinking. An 
earnest Calvinistic ministry had been their real teachers. 
We well remember a class of intelligent and thoughtful 
men, now nearly all passed away, who had received their 
only teaching from the church and from the Bible ; nor can 
we avoid regretting, when we think how much they formed 
the salt of the Scottish people, that the class should be so 
well nigh an extinct one. The pabulum on which they fed 
and grew strong still survives, however; and when we hear 
from the pulpit, powerful and original thinking that awakens 
thought in others, while at the same time it ensures the 
diffusion of an element of earnestness, we recognize in it the 
old teaching, which made the people of Scotland what they 
were when at their best." Yes, the pabulum still survives 
and if we mistake not, the class so much admired by the 
geologist is by no means " an extinct one." There are 
those, and not a few, in his country and in our own, who 
still adhere to " the old way of teaching" — who read and 
expound the word of God, and cause the people to under- 
stand its meaning. 

It is no doubt true that the influence the pulpit once had 
almost entirely to itself, is now shared with the Sabbath- 
school, the colporteur, and the printing press; still the 
" power of the pulpit" in preventing crime, and in promot- 
ing virtue and religion, is very great. Like the life-giving 
principle of the air, it is everywhere, and yet scarcely re- 
cognized. Doubtless there is much inefficiency in the pul- 



32 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

pit, but is there none in the pews ? But few ministers of 
the gospel are as able and successful as they should be, but 
are the hearers of the word efficient doers ? The main 
business of the pulpit is to bring the Divine word home to 
the conscience — into living contact with the mind and heart 
of the hearers. And if we are not greatly mistaken, the 
best way to do this, is " the old way of teaching," that is, 
of teaching the people as the prophets and apostles and our 
blessed Lord himself taught them. Doctrines, precepts, 
promises, threatenings, commands, and duties are taught in 
the scriptures by biographies, or memoirs and parables. The 
chequered life of man is made to teach and illustrate what 
we are to believe and what we are to do, that we may inherit 
eternal life. The biographies of the Bible are living lessons. 
They are not perfect as pictures, but true to the life, giving 
the blemishes as well as the beauties. The Judges of Is- 
rael, and all the heroes that lived before and since Agamem- 
non are nothing to us, unless we recognize them to be "men 
of like passions with ourselves" — u our loftier brothers, but 
one in blood." To read or preach of the thousands who 
have lived before us, " in the gray dawn of time," as if we 
were reciting some unmeaning hearsay story, is to fail al- 
together of a proper appreciation of the mind of the Spirit 
in causing the biographies of the Bible to be written. The 
Hebrew historians, by one single touch, one little incident, 
chronicle the state of a man's mind or a period of his life, 
and expose at one view the naked anatomy of the human 
heart. There are no such biographical memoirs anywhere 
else as we have in the Bible. As studies of the natural 
history of man's inner life, they challenge our highest atten- 
tion. It is for us to draw warning and encouragement from 
the lives of holy men of old, who did battle for the right, 
both against themselves and the world, and who sometimes 
fell, and then, after many a struggle, rose again to the con- 



THE STORY A REVELATION INSPIRED. 33 

flict, and after a life-long quarrel with sin and the enemies 
of God, gloriously triumphed. If we read their lives aright, 
as we work at the " naming forge of life/' we shall 

" Know how sublime a thing it is 
To suffer and be strong." 

A studied depreciation of the scriptures of the Old Testa- 
ment has ever marked the course of rationalism in the old 
world, and is one of the most unfavourable symptoms of the 
theological movements of our own country, especially of New 
England, under the lead of such men as Parker and Emer- 
son. It is not enough to take out of them all true evange- 
lism. The inspiration of the prophets is made nothing more 
than the inspiration of genius, such as is common to an artist, 
a poet, or an orator. On the contrary we hold that the scrip- 
tures are of God in the highest sense of inspiration, and 
that they testify of Christ and of eternal life through him. 
Some heretics in ancient times held that the Old Testament 
was the work of a secondary evil principle or deity, that 
was in perpetual warfare with the eternal fountain of good.* 

* Marcion and his followers rejected the Old Testament altogether. 
Schleiermacher and his school deny its inspiration. Some of them even 
go so far as to say that "an owl is as much inspired as Isaiah was." They 
all contend that there is no higher inspiration than " christian conscious- 
ness." It is obvious whither all this tends. The result is the same, 
whether we rely on man's " inner light," " religious sentiment," " religious 
intentions," "spiritual insight," or "christian consciousness." If these 
or any of them be supreme, then the writings of the prophets and apos- 
tles are no more inspired than are the recorded views and feelings of 
Bunyan and Payson, or of christians generally. And if so, we are with- 
out any infallible rule of faith and manners. What we have regarded as 
a revelation supernaturally made is nothing better than the light of na- 
ture. Indeed, natural and revealed religion become to us one and the 
same. The English and the French deists of the last century were but 
little, if at all, further from the truth, than Newman and Parker, and the 
Keologists of Germany in general. 



3i THE GIANT JUDGE. 

According to this view the Jewish system was to be regarded 
as essentially defective and positively evil — carnal and de- 
basing. Consequently Christ came not to fulfil, but to de- 
stroy — and in fact, the New Testament is something 
wholly new, different from, and in contradiction to, the Old 
Testament. On the other hand, some of the first converts 
from Judaism to Christianity, insisted on the continued obli- 
gations of the law of Moses, not only on converted Jews, 
but also on converted Gentiles. They insisted on circum- 
cision as well as baptism — on obedience to Moses as well as 
to Christ in order to salvation. This error the great apostle, 
who wrote the epistle to the Hebrews, has most happily cor- 
rected, and so corrected as to show us the use of, and the 
difference between, the two dispensations. 

Spencer* and his followers rob the Old Testament of its 
Christianity, and not a few evangelical authors on the other 
side have betrayed an inclination to over-estimate the per- 
fection of the Mosaic dispensation. Some have found no 
types of Christ, no resurrection, no immortality in the Old 
Testament; others spiritualize almost everything in it. 

Both extremes are to be avoided. Ever since the days 
of Origen, the cause of truth has been more or less em- 
barrassed by allegorical interpretations of scripture. The 
fault, in our judgment, of many evangelical writers is that 
they find types, where, oftentimes, we should be taught only 
bv suggestion, or by way of accommodation. A too liberal 
or a too literal rule of interpretation maybe alike erroneous. 
If the Protestant enhances the distinction between the law 
and the gospel, the Romanist underrates it. And both have 

* See Spencer's work De Legibus llebroeorum. In answer to him 
see Witsius on the Covenants, lib. iv. c. 11, 12. Also Calvin's Institutes, 
lib. ii. c. 10. While it is certainly a great error to rob the Old Testament 
of its Christianity, it is an error of not less magnitude to despoil the dis- 
tinctive doctrines of the New Testament, by unduly pressing analogies 
and types out of the Old upon the New. 



THE STORY A REVELATION INSPIRED. o5 

a theory to support, or dogmatical prepossessions to defend. 
The true view is, that the law is a schoolmaster to bring us 
to Christ, who fulfilled the law and the prophets, and by one 
offering of himself hath perfected for ever them that are 
sanctified. See Heb. x. 12 — 14. 

There are types as well as prophecies, in the Old Testa- 
ment. But every incident or word of it is not so to be in- 
terpreted. The Mosaic economy was typical and prepara- 
tory to the gospel. But the minutiae of the temple, the 
nails and badgers' skins of the tabernacle, and many such 
things, were not types. A brave man is compared to a lion; 
but it were ridiculous to press the analogy, and figure out 
his resemblance to a lion, and find the counterpart of the 
lion's mane and claws. An indifference to revealed truth, 
if not to spiritual religion, lies at the bottom of this depre- 
ciation of the Old Testament. For no book of the Bible is 
a mere dry statement of the past. They are all instinct 
with life. Even the list of hard names is of importance. 
Genealogical tables are of use in tracing out the promises 
and verifying their fulfilment. Our only sure guide is the 
written word of God. We are to listen to what God has 
said — what doctrines and duties he has taught in the lives 
of holy men and women in olden times, not as recorded by 
fabulists, but as recorded by men moved to write by the 
Holy Spirit. The voice of all antiquity is not the voice of 
God. The voice of God comes to us with authority only 
as revealed by his holy prophets and by his own Son, Jesus 
Christ, and his apostles. He is then but poorly qualified to 
appreciate the gospel, or to teach it to others as a minister, 
or Sabbath-school teacher, who is a stranger to the treasury 
of truth contained in the Old Testament. Nor are the nar- 
ratives of the Old Testament fit only to instruct adults. 
They supply the best material for impressing on the mind 
of childhood the lessons of our holy religion. 



36 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

We have the authority of an apostle, that whatsoever 
things were written aforetime by Moses and the prophets 
were written for our learning. There is no fact recorded in 
Bible history that has not its echo still. The living world 
is but the recurring cycles of the past. Many of the actors 
on the stage of past history, are at this moment exercising 
a great influence on the world. Hearts long since cold 
under the green sod have sent out pulsations that are now 
beating, and will not cease till the sound of the trumpet of 
the last day. They being dead yet speak — still live by 
their influence on the acting generation, who will transmit 
their influence to the generations yet to come. The great 
and good of all past ages lived for us. Abel suffered for 
us. Abraham was tried for us. The patriarchs, prophets, 
lawgivers, and wise men of old, " the noble army of mar- 
tyrs" — all lived and died for us. Every mother's babe in 
Christendom is at this moment under the influence of the 
histories of the Bible. Whatsoever was done and said from 
the beginning, is impressing its influence upon our hearts 
and actions at this very moment. If this be true in gene- 
ral, as it certainly is, then the biographies of the earlier 
periods of the Bible are worthy of our serious attention. 
They reveal the existence and attributes of the Creator, 
and teach us how men and women like ourselves feared and 
served God. 

II. It is desirable, therefore, in the next place, that we 
understand on what plan or method, and with what design, 
these earlier biographies of the Bible were written. We 
believe there is a God, a personal, a living God, who is a 
Spirit, infinite and eternal, in contradistinction to " the dead 
god of deism" and pantheism. We have a God to glorify 
and enjoy, as well as a soul to save. And to enable us to do 
this, God has spoken to us. He has come down to us, that 
we may go up to him. Our Creator has come down to us 



THE STORY A REVELATION INSPIRED. 37 

in various ways and by manifold representations — by appear- 
ing to the patriarchs and speaking to them and the prophets 
in several ways, and last of all, by his Son Jesus Christ. 
Next to the existence of God in importance to us, is the 
question of a revelation from him to us as his creatures. If 
we have no access to him — if there is no communication 
between us and our Creator, we are of all creatures the most 
miserable ; our higher nature and nobler aspirations are then 
only to make us susceptible of miseries the brute can never 
know. But "God, who, at sundry times and in divers man- 
ners, spake in times past unto the fathers by the prophets, 
hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he 
hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made 
the worlds; who is the brightness of his glory, and the 
express image of his person." In this God- man, the infi- 
nite and the finite meet in perfect harmony. 

In the Old Testament as well as the New, we have both 
a revelation from God, and a record in which that revelation 
is enveloped. God has spoken to us and we have a reliable 
record of what he has said. Hume and Gibbon, Voltaire, 
D'Alembert, Diderot, and their associates and followers di- 
rected their attacks against Christianity itself, but for the 
last fifty years, the enemies of the Gospel have chiefly aimed 
to destroy the authority of its written records. They have 
not busied themselves so much in denying the existence or 
necessity of revealed religion, as in seeking to destroy all 
dependence upon its records, or the interpretation of it. 
They tell us. quite patronizingly, revealed religion is de- 
sirable. It is a good thing, if we could only know what it 
is. Now we maintain that we have not merely the idea of 
Christianity in the Bible, but we have Christianity itself, and 
we have a suitable, intelligible record of it, and of what it is. 
We may not only know that revealed truth is, but we may 

know what it is. 
4 



38 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

Beyond all controversy, the great question of our day 
turns upon the interpretation of the Divine word. It is 
important then for us to be acquainted with the history and 
proofs of Divine revelation, and to know that the Bible con- 
tains that revelation. The unerring message is invested in 
an infallible record. The Divine Messenger became incar- 
nate in a perfect human organism. The revelation is hea- 
venly, while the record, or history, of it is earthly; but 
this record was made by Divine direction. And if the 
Creator has really made a communication to our race, we 
should have a right to expect that he would take care that it 
be made in such a way as to embody and bring down to 
human apprehension just what he had to say to us, and 
that he would cause such a record of his revelation to be 
made and preserved, as would make known to the different 
generations of mankind his will for their salvation. Has 
God spoken to us ? Can we find out exactly what he has 
said ? According to our view, these questions are not 
to be separated. For it is an impeachment of the Divine 
wisdom and benevolence to suppose the former without 
the latter, and the latter of course implies the former. 
At the risk of repeating, we shall dwell somewhat on 
these questions. The authority of councils, the orthodoxy 
of creeds, and the infallibility of popes, are of no consequence 
in comparison with the subject of inspiration, nor have we 
any rule by which to settle such questions, until we have 
found infallibility in the Divine word. If our Creator has not 
revealed himself to us, we have no religion at all. And if 
he has revealed himself, but allowed the record of his own 
revelation to be so made that we cannot know what it is he 
has revealed, then we are made conscious that there is such 
a thing as a true religion, and painfully conscious too of our 
need of it, but left totally unable to find it, or to know cer- 
tainly what it is. But to make our answer as broad and as 



THE STORY A REVELATION INSPIRED. 39 

direct as our questionings, we say God has spoken from 
heaven to us, and we may know with as much absolute cer- 
tainty as we can know anything, both that God has spoken 
to us and what it is he has said to us. Our Creator has 
revealed his will to us for our salvation, and we may know 
what it is, and what that salvation is. In the Bible we have 
an external revelation, and a real inspiration, and in the 
teachings of the same Spirit of God by whom this reve- 
lation and inspiration have been made, we have also an in- 
ward and subjective illumination. The concurrence of faith 
in the former, with personal experience of the latter, consti- 
tutes us true christians. 

Revelation and inspiration are distinct; but as we receive 
these terms, the one implies the other. By a revelation we 
mean a communication of truth from God to man. By in- 
spiration we mean that the Spirit of God moved the prophets 
and apostles who received communications from God to write 
them out, transferring God's thoughts that were put into 
their minds by his Spirit into human language, and so trans- 
ferring them as not to mix any error with them, or make 
any mistake in the use of language. We believe, then, 
that the Bible is God's own inspired word, and that it is an 
all-sufficient rule of faith and conduct. It does not follow, 
however, that all the revelations that God has been pleased 
to make have been accompanied with the gift of inspiration 
to make a record of them. If we mistake not, some have 
had revelations in the highest sense, who did not write them 
out. And some have been inspired to write, who were 
endowed with power to work miracles, and yet probably 
received no revelations themselves. But all the revealed 
truths of holy scripture have been transferred to human 
language by the inspiration of God. It seems to us that 
one of the prolific causes of the confusion that is found in 
many writers on this subject is the want of distinct and 



40 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

clear statements as to what they mean by revelation and in- 
spiration. Another cause doubtless is that many authors 
undertake to explain too much, especially as to the modus 
of God's making known his will to us. If we are sure of 
the fact, may we not rest content in the assurance that In- 
finite Wisdom employed the right "divers manners/' to 
make communications to our race ? We hold therefore that 
the sacred writers received the truths which they have re- 
corded from God in a supernatural way, and that they were 
commanded by God himself to make the transcript of these 
truths for us, and were so directed and assisted in making 
this transcript by the Holy Spirit, that we have in this 
transcript not only a true and reliable record of God's 
thoughts concerning us, but the very thoughts themselves. 

The great question then, is not to distinguish between 
the revelation and the record and history of that revelation, 
but to get at what the revelation is — what does it reveal ? 
It is of no use to believe that the revelation is itself divine, 
if its enveloping record is erroneous, for in that case, we 
can never be sure that we have a revelation of God's will at 
all. It is to be regretted that so able a writer as Soame 
Jenyns in exalting the importance of the " Internal Evi- 
dences of the Christian Religion," should have thought it 
necessary to make so marked a distinction between the reve- 
lation that God has made to us, and the history we have of 
that revelation. He contends that we have a heavenly 
message, but " it is enclosed in a fallible earthly case, by 
which it is indeed polluted." And yet, he says the human 
errors and imperfections of the history of this revelation 
do not affect its divine origin. lC A diamond, though found 
in a bed of mud, is still a diamond, nor can the dirt which 
surrounds it, depreciate its value or destroy its lustre." In 
the translation, versions and transcriptions of the ancient 
writings of the prophets and apostles, and in the different 



THE STORY A REVELATION INSPIRED. 41 

editions of our holy Scriptures, there are verbal inaccura- 
cies. If there were not, they have been prevented by a 
continued miracle. And it is doubtless true, that the sa- 
cred writers have recorded some things that they did not 
need supernatural influence to be taught them. If Luke has 
copied his genealogy of the mother of our Lord from the 
Hebrew tables in common use at Jerusalem or Nazareth, he 
did not require any other special divine assistance to do it, 
than to originate the conception of so doing. And Paul 
could tell his name, and how he had left his cloak and 
parchments at Troas, without the miraculous guidance of the 
Holy Ghost. But even in recording such natural events, 
or circumstances of common life, as they could have re- 
corded if they had not been prophets and apostles, they 
were so guided and overruled, as to record nothing but what 
the Holy Spirit saw it best to have recorded for the end in 
view. We have therefore a revelation from God, and such 
a record and history of that revelation as God himself 
caused to be written by his Holy Spirit. The Bible is the 
word of the one, only, living and true God. We cannot 
believe that it is " a heap of mummery and priestcraft," 
nor that the Creator should make a revelation of himself to 
man, and yet not provide suitably for the communication of 
that revelation. It is to call in question his sincerity and 
wisdom, to say that he has revealed certain doctrines for the 
salvation of mankind, and yet made no provision for an in- 
fallibly valid vehicle of that revelation. In the Scriptures, 
then, of the Old and New Testaments we have the revela- 
tion of God, and the record of it, and it is comparatively 
easy to distinguish and separate the perfect from the imper- 
fect of that record. It surely is no argument against the 
inspiration of Isaiah, that some words in our translation 
should be spelled differently in different editions; or that 

there should be a difference in punctuation and such other 
4* 



42 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

minutiae. The essential integrity of the sacred text has 
been preserved. The message and the vehicle of the mes- 
sage are from God. What God has revealed has been writ- 
ten for us by his direction. The sacred writers were moved 
by the Holy Ghost to write as they did. What then have 
they written, and for what purpose did the Holy Ghost 
move them to write ? The Bible is no more without a de- 
sign, a plan, and a unity than is the universe. Though 
composed of two great departments, and of many different 
books written by different authors, stretching over about 
two thousand years, and living and writing at different 
periods and different places, still the Bible is not a series of 
detached and independent documents, mechanically strung 
together by the hand of a compiler, nor is it a farrago of heter- 
ogeneous fragments accidentally combined. On the con- 
trary, it is a bona fide history. It is pervaded from begin- 
ning to end by one dominant idea. One great specific pur- 
pose is in view from the first word of Genesis to the end of 
the Revelation of John. On what plan then was the Bible 
written and for what purpose ? 

Some tell us that the Old Testament in particular is a 
collection of romances — that the patriarchs and judges of 
Israel were mere Bedouin or nomadic chiefs, like the Sheikhs 
of the modern Arabs, and that the germ of truth was fur- 
nished by their lives, which the writer has taken, and worked 
up after the most approved manner of fiction. The Old 
Testament, according to this view, is nothing but a biogra- 
phy of some wandering chieftains, written in the style of 
oriental exaggeration. Some who are ashamed of such a 
theory as this, modify it, by telling us, the lives of the 
patriarchs and judges were never meant to be received as 
true histories at all, but as mere poetical descriptions of life 
and manners of early times, somewhat after the manner of 
the Eclogues and Bucolics. What then becomes of the his- 



THE STORY A REVELATION INSPIRED. 43 

toric memoirs, national festivals commemorative of actual 
events, and of contemporary and subsequent allusions in the 
history of other nations, and of the superiority of their style 
and of their doctrines, and of this whole class of proofs and 
subjects ? 

Another view is that the history of the patriarchs and 
judges is strictly true, but not of them as individuals ; but 
as a history of races and revolutions. Abraham, Joseph, 
and Samuel are, according to this view, not the names of 
individuals, but ideal types of principles or of races. 
They are myths, that is, " ideas clothed in facts/' And 
these myths were invented to explain subsequent events. 
Just as if the history of the beginning of the American 
Revolution about the stamp act and the tax on tea, and the 
battle of Bunker Hill, had been invented to account for the 
present fact that the United States is an independent nation 
and separate from Great Britain ; and that Washington 
was not an individual at all, but a name invented and made 
to represent the embodiment of the heroic deeds of our an- 
cestors. It is certainly a sufficient answer to such a theory 
to say that the ancients were as palpable individualities as we 
are ourselves. It is no easy matter to refine and sublimate 
their flesh and blood and personal actions into mere myths. 
Does not primeval history deal with individualities as truly 
as the history of our own times ? The same philosophy that 
makes Homer or Socrates, Moses or Abraham a myth, 
would make all the past nothing but a myth to us, and 
ourselves myths to our successors. The true view is a 
happy deliverance from such artificial and erroneous sys» 
terns. It is this : The history of Bible characters was re- 
corded for the moral improvement of mankind, by furnish- 
ing examples of virtue and vice, the one rewarded and the 
other punished. In and along with this history we have an 
embodiment of Divine Revelation, so that the doctrines and 



J 



44 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

principles revealed and the duties taught are illustrated by 
living examples, and the well-being of those that do well, 
and the ill-being of those that do evil are set forth as an 
encouragement to do well, and a warning to cease from evil. 
And the revelation contained in the Old Testament and the 
history and record of that revelation are all so made as to 
be introductory to the Gospel dispensation. Moses, the 
law, and the prophets prepared the way for the coming of 
Christ. 

It follows, therefore, that if the history of Bible charac- 
ters is a true biography of individuals, we shall have a full 
face view of men and women, as they really were. Accord- 
ingly, it is not a profile picture we have, but a true full face. 
Their faults are recorded as faithfully as their virtues. There 
is no attempt made by the sacred writers to justify or ex- 
plain away every appearance of a fault; in the conduct of 
those of whom they write, nor is there any tampering with 
the principles of morals, to excuse them. And if the spe- 
cific purpose of the writings of Moses was to prepare the 
chosen people for their covenant relation to Jehovah, and 
through them to prepare the ancient church and the world 
for the coming of the long promised Messiah, still it re- 
mains true that we have a truthful record of individuals, 
and of divine communications made to them. 

The main design of the record that we have of the patri- 
archs, and of the chosen people of God, was to teach man- 
kind that it was true, that God had always in some way 
kept up a communication with the human race. By acts, 
promises, commands, and manifest tokens of the Divine 
presence, the great idea was alive in the mind of some one, 
who in that particular, was a representative and depositary 
for his race, that God was still accessible to his creatures — 
that he was manifesting, and would still more clearly mani- 
fest; himself to mankind. First he called Abraham ; then 



THE STORY A REVELATION INSPIRED. 45 

the promise was to his descendants, and in process of time 
they became a great people, and to them were committed the 
oracles of God. As mankind multiplied and spread abroad, 
the line became more distinctive; but as the time drew near, 
clearer and clearer intimations were given of the extension 
of the blessings of Abraham's covenant seed by the coming 
and kingdom of the great Messiah. Of necessity therefore 
the history of the chosen people who were the depositary of 
the divine oracles must be a record of gracious and provi- 
dential interpositions, as well as of individual verities. We 
should expect a priori to find in it a supernatural element, 
prophecy and miracle, theophanies or divine appearances in 
human form, as well as a record of the accidents of human- 
ity in communion with the Deity. Now it would be un- 
natural if there had been no imperfections to record in the 
lives of the patriarchs, judges, prophets, and kings of Israel. 
And if they had not been men of like passions with our- 
selves, or even worse, there had been no such display of 
sovereignty in selecting them, as would correct their pride. 
The intrinsic weakness of the vessel is clearly shown, that 
it may be confessed that it was an act of pure sovereignty 
that chose them as the channels of divine grace. Often- 
times their own views and cherished wishes were thwarted. 
Abraham's hopes in Ishmael, Isaac's in Joseph were disap- 
pointed. The promised seed came not in the line of either. 
The prophetic preeminence was lodged elsewhere. The 
patriarchs received special divine favours, not because they 
were perfect — not because they were better than all the rest 
of their cotemporaries. It may be doubted, speaking after 
the manner of men, if Melchisedek was not more entitled 
to the distinction of being the progenitor of the chosen race 
than Abram of the Chaldees. 

At least, as it was not a reward for extraordinary piety 
that the patriarchs received such favours, so neither was it 



46 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

because of their transgressions, but in spite of them. It 
was not for their sakes, but for a far higher and greater pur- 
pose. And as a corrective of corruption and pride — of des- 
pondency and presumption, a faithful narrative has been 
given of them as men, and the Divine sovereignty is mani- 
fested in their salvation, and in the manner of their treat- 
ment, as well as in the record that has been made of the 
revelation made to them. It was certainly a palpable lesson 
to the Hebrew and a powerful corrective of his pride, to 
know that, if through David's race, he was of Abraham, 
"the friend of God," Ishmael was not less Abraham's 
son, and Esau was Jacob's brother, and Moab and Ammon 
were the sons of Lot. The Bible is a map that traces all 
nations to a common origin, and shows that though their 
lines of descent are continually crossing one another, still 
God has kept his chosen people distinct, that in them he 
might show forth his sovereignty, and the severity of his 
judgments, and the greatness of his mercy. 

It is not necessary for maintaining this design of Bible 
biography, that we should deny that there were any other 
purposes in view. Collateral and minor ends were no doubt 
answered in the Pentateuch, and in the history of the 
Judges, and through the whole and by the whole, the ancient 
church is seen as a type of that which was to come. 

While, then, it is a painful fact, it is nevertheless an in- 
structive one, that we have no perfect biography in the 
Bible, except that of the Son of God, the Holy One. The 
patriarchs were all guilty of some dark sin. The apostles 
were not blameless. They all had their failings. We must 
remember, however, that the Bible in recording the sins of 
patriarchs and apostles does not approve of their sinful acts. 
The Bible does not tell us that such acts were the perfect 
fruits of their faith. On the contrary, their creed con- 
demned every one of their sins. Their errors were not the 



THE STORY A REVELATION INSPIRED. 47 

consequences of their religion, but in spite of it. It was 
not because they were pious, that they fell into such griev- 
ous sins, but because they had not piety enough to resist 
their own depraved inclinations and the devil's temptations. 
And in the fact that the sacred writers describe with im- 
partiality both the faults and the virtues of the founders of 
their nation, we have a strong proof that they wrote by the 
inspiration of God. As Jews they were exceedingly proud, 
and disposed to magnify everything that belonged to their 
nation. It must have been therefore sorely against their 
natural feelings to record the glaring misdeeds of their 
fathers, patriarchs, judges, and prophets. It was against 
their national pride and patriotism, to do so; yet we find 
them all honest, faithful, and impartial in their memoirs of 
the heroes of their nation. Even Morell, in his Philosophy 
of Religion, admits that if the Spirit of God was in the 
Hebrew church, " then the writings which embody this 
religious state are inspired." But in the record of their 
religious state we are not to expect " a higher religion or a 
more perfect morality than actually existed in those times; 
hence accordingly the imperfections both in moral and reli- 
gious ideas which are mixed up with all their sacred writ- 
ings. " — Page 169. 

Finally. It is not true therefore that the Old Testa- 
ment is a failure. It accomplished all it was intended to 
do. It is not true that the Creator set up one religion for 
one race in the age of the patriarchs, and finding that it 
did not work well, tried to mend it by the Mosaic dispensa- 
tion, and then repaired Moses's institutes by the prophets. 
This is the mere garrulity of obsolete Deism. The religion 
of the Bible is one. Christianity is as old as the creation. 
Abel and Noah were christians as much as Peter and Paul. 
They looked forward, while Peter and Paul looked back. 
They anticipated the sacrifice on Calvary, while the apostles 



48 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

and all christians since the incarnation keep it in remem- 
brance. God's plan of revealing redemption from the be- 
ginning was to be progressive to the incarnation. The old 
dispensation was not intended to be effectual or final in 
itself. It was the shadow of good things to come. And 
the promises fulfilled in us are as necessary as the promises 
given to the patriarchs. " They are like the two parts of a 
tally. The fathers had one part in the promises, and we 
the other in the fulfilment, and neither would have been 
complete without the other." — Barnes. 



SAMSON S PARENTS — THE HERO PROMISED. 49 



CHAPTER IV. 

samson's parents — the hero promised. 

" Oh, wherefore was my birth from heaven foretold 

Twice by an angel ? 

Why was my breeding ordered and prescribed 
As of a person separate to God, 
Designed for great exploits ?" — Samson. 

In a previous chapter I have considered at some length 
the plan, method, and design of .the biographies of the Scrip- 
tures, especially of the earlier ones, and have attempted to 
set forth briefly the true nature of the revelation and inspi- 
ration of the Bible, which not only contains the word of 
God, but is the word of God itself. This has been deemed 
a necessary introduction to the inspired history which it is 
our purpose now to explain, because confessedly in our day, 
the question is, What does the Bible reveal ? As a book, as 
the book, and as a volume of history it has its place in the 
world, from which its enemies have despaired of ever being 
able to remove it. The great question therefore now is ; 
What does the Bible say ? — Can we arrive at a reliable in- 
terpretation of the Scriptures ? Most certainly. We have 
a revelation from God, and an inspired record of that reve- 
lation. And this revelation and record are both made in 
such a way that we may know the will of God for our salva- 
tion. As we believe with Bishop Horsley that every word 
of the Bible is from God, and every man is interested in it, 

so it is our purpose, in these chapters, to give a condensed 
5 



50 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

commentary upon the text, and draw from it the life of our 
hero. We shall introduce to you therefore, without further 
ceremony, Samson's parents receiving the promise of the 
hero-child. 

What then was their political condition, and how were 
they circumstanced as to their neighbours ? 

" And the children of Israel did evil again." That is, 
according to the Hebrew, " added to commit evil," the evil 
of the idolatry of the surrounding heathen, which in their 
case was both treason and impiety. " And the Lord deliv- 
ered them into the hand of the Philistines forty years." 

Here are three points to be noticed. 

1. Who were the Philistines ? 

2. In what sense did their oppression of Israel continue 
forty years ? 

3. What is the meaning of the phrase, " And the Lord 
delivered them into the hand of the Philistines ?" 

First. The Philistines are believed to have been a colony 
from Egypt. The old name Palestina is supposed to be a 
corruption of Philistia. If so, the whole land of promise 
derived one of the names by which it is designated from a 
people who never possessed more than a small part of it. 
The name Palestina was first applied to the strip of country 
lying along the Mediterranean from Lydda to Gaza; then 
to that part of Canaan between the sea and the Jordan, and 
finally to the whole country ; so that the land of promise, 
Judea, Canaan, and Palestine became synonymous. 

It is evident that the Philistines in the days of the judges, 
and probably in the days of the patriarchs also, were supe- 
rior to any of their neighbours. They were certainly a 
powerful people in Abraham's day. This we should expect, 
if they were an Egyptian colony, for the ancient Egyptians 
were altogether the most civilized and the best people of 
their day. Some suppose the Philistines were the Arabians 



samson's parents — the hero promised. 51 

expelled from Egypt, and known as " the Shepherd Kings/ 1 
on account of whose depredations on Egypt, every shepherd 
was reckoned " an abomination." As a proof of their supe- 
riority, we may observe that it is said in 1 Samuel xiii. 19- 
21, that in the beginning of Saul's reign no smith was found 
in Israel, so that the Israelites were obliged to go down to 
the land of the Philistines to sharpen their ploughshares, 
coulters, axes, and mattocks. 

Even after David's conquest, we read of the Philistines 
as a powerful people. They rose in rebellion against Jeho- 
ram, and made great slaughter in the land of Judah during 
the reign of Ahab. They were again brought into subjec- 
tion by Hezekiah. The prophets Isaiah, Amos, Zephaniah, 
Jeremiah, and Ezekiel allude to them. They were partially 
subdued by Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, and afterwards by 
the king of Egypt, and still more reduced by Nebuchadnez- 
zar, king of Babylon. The Persians, and then the Greeks 
under Alexander the Great, overran their country. Some 
allusion is made to them in the days of the Asmonean 
Princes, and then they are lost from history. 

From Amos ix. 7, and Jeremiah xlvii. 4, learned men 
think that the Caphtorim were descendants of Mizraim, 
father of the Egyptians. Gen. x. 13, 14, And from Deut. 
ii. 23, it appears, the Caphtorim drove out the Aviin from 
Hazerim to Azzah, (that is, Gaza,) and dwelt in their stead. 
If, as it seems to us, the Casluhim, Caphtorim, Cherethites, 
and Philistines are one and the same people, then we should 
conclude that the Philistines were from Egypt, and that the 
most influential part of them came to the main land of 
Syria from Crete. As the Cherethites and the Cretans are 
the same, are we not authorized to identify Caphtor and 
Crete? See Ezekiel xxv. 16; Zeph. ii. 5 ; 1 Samuel xxx. 
14, 15. From the history of the kings of Judah, it appears 
that their guards were sometimes Philistines, who were 



52 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

known under the name of Pelethites and Cherethites. These 
Pelethite (Philistine) guards answered to the Capigis among 
the Turks. If Caphtor is not Crete, where is it ? If the 
Philistines were not from Egypt, whence came they ? Does 
not their history render their Egyptian origin very probable ? 
Some, indeed, think that Caphtor was in the Delta. Dr. 
Clark believes it identical with Cyprus, but gives no satis- 
factory reason. If, as some think, Casluhim meant inhabi- 
tants of Colchis, then they were of Egyptian origin ; for 
almost all authors agree that Colchis was peopled from 
Egypt. "And Pathrusim, and Casluhim, out of whom 
came Philistim and Caphtorim." Gen. x. 14. 

The government of the Philistines was spasmodic and 
changeable. In the time of David and in the days of Abra- 
ham, they had a king ; but during the administration of the 
Judges, they had a government very similar to that of the 
Hebrews. Their five great cities constituted so many states, 
each having its own chief. These chiefs are in our text 
called lords. The term, seranim, is found only in the plural. 
Sometimes, however, they are found confederate together, 
making common cause against their national enemy. They 
were essentially one people. They had the same laws and 
religion, and spoke the same language. 

Secondly. It is probable the forty years date from the 
ascendency of their enemies as recorded, Judges x. 6 — 8 ; 
that is, from Eglon to Samson, including the twenty years 
of his administration. The case seems to stand in this way : 
the Philistines, who were the most powerful of all their 
enemies at that time, had tyrannized over the Israelites for 
twenty years, when Samson appeared as their deliverer. 
During this twenty years, they had suffered oppression with- 
out any redress, or any one to deliver them. Samson arose 
and acted as their champion for twenty years, which make 
the forty years of the text. It must be confessed, however, 



samson's parents — the hero promised. 53 

that the chronology and dates of this period are not very 
clearly stated. The connection of the text is with the 
period occupied in the previous chapters. In the beginning 
of this thirteenth chapter, the writer seems to turn back, 
and speak again of the previous oppressions of his country- 
men by the Philistines, in order to introduce Samson as 
their champion. And hence, he says, that from the begin- 
ning of this particular ascendency of the Philistines to the 
death of Samson, when he finished his deliverance, for the 
Hebrews, it was forty years. 

Thirdly. After Shamgar's exploits as recorded in a pre- 
vious chapter, the Hebrews had a little repose. But now 
as they have again departed from the living God, so the 
Philistines are again commissioned to punish them. " The 
Lord delivered them into the hand of the Philistines. " 
The struggle between the Hebrews and Philistines was one 
of great obstinacy and vicissitude. It was a border war. 
Neither was able wholly to subdue the other. 

In the second chapter, fourteenth verse, the enemies of 
God's chosen people are called " spoilers ;" that is, robbers, 
such as were plundering the Canaanites. The term also 
means, oppressors in general. And to them it is said, " the 
Lord sold the Israelites." The Hebrew for sold signifies "to 
alienate the possession of anything for a valuable considera- 
tion." It is sometimes used, however, without the annexed 
idea of an equivalent rendered. When, therefore, as in this 
passage, it is said, " the anger of the Lord was hot against 
Israel, and he sold them into the hands of their enemies 
around about them," the meaning is not that the Lord made 
the Israelites to sin, but that he withdrew from them his 
peculiar protection, and that he did this because of their 
rebellion against him. The scriptures often represent the 
withdrawing of God's favour as the greatest calamity that 

can befall a nation or an individual. See Psa. xliv. 13; Isa. 
5* 



51 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

1. 1 ; Deut. xxxii. 80 ; and Judges iii. 8 ; and iv. 8. Moses 
had told them that, when they were disobedient to the Lord, 
he would withdraw from them his peculiar preseifce, which 
was their only safety. The delivery of the Hebrews, there- 
fore, into the hands of the Philistines, was nothing but the 
fulfilment of the solemn threatening made to their fathers 
and repeated to themselves. It was but the execution of 
the just sentence of God, who was then their king, for their 
disobedience. And to secure this execution, it was only 
necessary for the divine protection to be withdrawn. When 
left to themselves they were an easy prey to the warlike 
heathen. The absence of the sun leaves us in darkness. 
God is not the author of sin, nor can men blame their Crea- 
tor with their evil ways. Learned theologians have re- 
course to various intermediate explanations by which to 
reconcile divine sovereignty and man's free agency. But it 
is quite sufficient for me to know that God is sovereign and 
man is free. And though I were not able to perceive how 
God " sold" the Israelites into the hand of the Philistines, 
and that yet it was for their own sins, or how Pharaoh hard- 
ened his own heart, and that God hardened Pharaoh's heart; 
yet still, I am persuaded of both facts, and hold them both 
to be consistent with ethical and mental philosophy. What 
if there be a transcendental difficulty in such a harmony ? 
Is there not just the same in every question that is any how 
connected with the origin of moral or physical evil ? It is 
doubtless true that God is sometimes represented in the 
Bible as doing what he only permits. And yet I am frank 
to say that I feel no necessity for, nor do I take pleasure in 
dwelling on such theological distinctions. I see not that 
these distinctions between a divine permission and a divine 
appointment, founded on the vis inertias of created minds, 
which are as clay in the hands of the potter, are really any 



samson's parents — the hero promised. 55 

relief. These metaphysical distinctions do not relieve hu- 
man accountability from the difficulties that mental philo- 
sophy or the light of nature throws upon it. The only ex- 
planation of the difficulty is the authority of God for the 
facts. Nor am I able to find such distinctions in the word 
of God. Where do the scriptures qualify, or attempt to ex- 
plain and harmonize the statements about Pharaoh's heart? 
"Why should our theologians be more jealous of the divine 
character than the writers of the Bible ? Where is our 
faith ? Is not God just, and is he not sovereign ? May we 
not rest satisfied with the facts stated by inspired men upon 
the authority of God ? 

Is it not true, every Lord's day, that some of you listen 
to the divine word, and that hearing it with indifference, or 
with aversion, you refuse obedience, and thereby harden 
your own heart under the very process that was graciously 
designed to soften it ? And in doing so, are you not still 
conscious of your own free agency ? The offer of pardon is 
made to you in good faith. There is no deficiency in it. 
The sun that melts one substance hardens another ; not be- 
cause the sun is in any respect another and a different body 
to the one from what it is to the other. The ground of the 
different and diverse effect is in the nature of the body acted 
upon by the sun, and not owing to any change or defect in 
the orb of day. Salvation is always of the Lord, and per- 
dition is always the work of the sinner's own hand. There 
is nothing between the greatest sinner and salvation, but 
his own unwillingness to accept of it as a free, sovereign 
gift through Jesus Christ as the only Redeemer. 

St. Augustine explains this crux criticorunij by saying, 
" God does not harden men by infusing malice into them, 
but by not imparting mercy to them. God does not work 
this hardening of heart in man, but he is said to harden 



56 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

him whom he will not soften, to blind him whom he will 
not enlighten, and to repel him whom he will not call."* 

From the second verse, we learn that Samson's father be- 
longed to the tribe of Dan, and the town of Zorah, which 
seems to have been a border town between the territories 
of Dan and Judah, and near the country of the Philistines. 
Joshua xv. 33. Eusebius says Zorah was ten miles from 
Eleutheropolis. Calmet thinks the Zorites of 1 Chron. ii. 
54, and the Zorathites of 1 Chron. iv. 2, belonged to Man- 
oah's town. 

u Barren and bare not" is the usual Hebrew affirmation 
emphatic — " Thou shalt die and not live." " And he con- 
fessed and denied not." " But Sarai was barren : she had 
no child." 

All we know of Manoah impresses us with the belief, 
that Josephus is correct in saying that he was a man of 
great virtue, had but few equals, and was without dispute 
the principal person of his country in his day. His wife's 
name is not recorded in the Bible, nor by Josephus. He 
says, however, that she was celebrated for her beauty and 
her piety. 

Samson's father was a man of extraordinary faith. He 
is the only one of whom the Bible speaks, that received a 
promise from an angel or prophet without hesitation or 
doubt. Abraham required some proof. Sarah " laughed." 
The Shunamite woman said to Elisha, " Nay my Lord, do 
not lie unto thine handmaid." Zachariah said, " Whereby 
shall I know this ?" and was struck dumb for his unbelief 
until John the Baptist was born. And Mary, the mother 

* Non obdurat Deus impartiendo malitiam, sed non impartiendo mise- 
ricordiam. Non operatur Deus in homine ipsam duritiam cordis, sed in- 
durare eum dicitur quern mollire noluerit, sic etiam excoecare quern illu- 
minare noluerit, et repellere eum quern noluerit vocare. — Epis. 194, ad 
Sixtum. 



samson's parents — the hero promised. 57 

of our Lord, said, u How can this thing be ?" But when 
Manoah is told by his wife and then by the angel what is 
to take place, he believed without any hesitation, and only 
desired to be instructed as to how they were to bring up the 
promised child. " And the angel of the Lord appeared 
unto the woman, and said unto her, Behold now, thou art 
barren, and bearest not : but thou shalt conceive, and bear a 
son. Now therefore, beware, I pray thee, and drink not 
wine, nor strong drink, and eat not any unclean thing. 
For, lo, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son : and no razor 
shall come on his head ; for the child shall be a Nazarite 
unto God from the womb ; and he shall begin to deliver 
Israel out of the hand of the Philistines." — Verses 3-5. 

"And the angel of the Lord," that is, "the Son of God 
himself," according to Diodati and most evangelical com- 
mentators. Of this matter we shall speak again in the 
next chapter. 

The angel told the woman what she already well knew — 
what was indeed the cause of great grief to her — not to up- 
braid her or aggravate her grief. There is no reproach cast 
upon her in the angel's address. His purpose was to give 
her confidence — to convince her that he was a true prophet, 
and competent to make the promise of a son — and that she 
ought therefore to believe his words. Like a skilful medi- 
cal man, he describes first the disease, that he may in- 
spire his patient with confidence in his sympathy, and 
ability to apply the proper remedy. Our blessed Lord fol- 
lowed the same method in arresting the attention of the 
impotent man at the pool. He awakened him to the fact 
of his presence, and assured him of his sympathy, and in- 
spired him with hope by asking him if he would be made 
whole. And he told the woman of Samaria enough of her 
life to convince her he was a prophet, and prepare her at 
last to confess that he was the Messiah himself. 



58 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

The prohibition in the fourth verse does not imply that 
she had been guilty of excess. Nor is it intimated that 
such things were not lawful at other times and to other per- 
sons. It is true some meats were regarded as unclean among 
the Jews. The distinction of clean and unclean animals is 
at least as old as Noah, and no doubt as old as sacrifices. 
But it was especially forbidden to a Nazarite to touch any- 
thing unclean. The angel would have her understand that 
the sanctifying of her child was to begin with herself. 
From her conception, the child was to be regarded as con- 
secrated in an especial manner to God. And if during her 
gestation and nursing, she was thus abstemious, the extra- 
ordinary strength of the child would be the less liable to 
be ascribed to any false or fictitious cause. There was a 
natural fitness in the prescribed regimen and temperament 
to produce a healthful child, but his superhuman strength 
cannot be accounted for from merely natural causes. A 
miraculous agency was employed, as we shall see in the un- 
foldings of his history ; yet it was then as in many other 
cases, the divine rule, that the ordinary natural means 
should be used. Miracles do not supersede, but go beyond 
and above ordinary agencies. There is always a harmony 
between divine efficiency and human agency. 

" A Nazarite unto God from the womb," means one set 
apart and consecrated especially to the service of God. 
There is no connection between a Nazarite and a Nazarene. 
The latter means an inhabitant of Nazareth, the town of 
our Lord's parents. But a Nazarite was one wholly de- 
voted to God. And of such it was especially required, that 
they should not shave their head. The law of the Nazarite 
can be found in Numbers vi. Though expected to be a 
person of uncommon self-denial and sanctity, the Nazarite 
was not a recluse, nor an ascetic. Pie did not live in a cell, 
nor on a pillar, nor in the wilderness. He might eat, drink, 



samson's parents — the hero promised. 59 

marry and live in society as other men, excepting that he 
was to avoid all ceremonial pollution, and especially never 
to come in contact with a dead body. The vow to abstain 
from wine, and not to shave the head, might be for a 
limited time or for life. In the case of Samson, of Samuel, 
and of John the Baptist, however, the consecration was 
made before their birth and was to continue till death. I 
believe Samson is the first person mentioned in the Bible 
by name as an actual Nazarite. Like Isaac, Samuel, and 
John the Baptist, he was the only son of a mother long 
childless. " Mercies long waited for, often prove signal 
mercies, and it is made to appear they were worth waiting 
for, and by them others may be encouraged to continue 
their hope in God's mercy. " — Henry. 

The mother of Israel's hero drinks nothing but water, and 
the child himself tastes nothing but nature's beverage. 
" And never did wine," says the pious Hall, " make so strong 
a champion as water did here. The power of nourishment 
is not in the creatures, but in their Maker. Daniel and his 
three companions kept their complexion with the same diet 
wherewith Samson got his strength ; he that gave power to 
the grape, can give it to the stream. God, how justly 
do we raise our eyes from our tables unto thee ; who canst 
make water nourish and wine enfeeble !" 

" Oh ! madness to think use of strongest wines 
And strongest drinks our chief support of health, 
When God with these forbidden made choice to rear 
His mighty champion, strong above compare, 
Whose drink was only from the liquid brook/' 

Special holiness eminently becomes special appointments 
to divine service. Special care in food and drink was re- 
quired of her who was to be the mother of Samson. The 
man of the world may take his full scope and deny himself 



60 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

nothing. And verily he hath his reward. He may in- 
dulge the pride of his heart and the lust of his eyes, 
not without sin indeed, but with less guilt than one 
who professes to be a christian. For having named the 
^name of Christ, we must be careful to depart from all ini- 
quity. If we are Christ's, we must have his spirit. If 
christians, we are consecrated to God as true Nazarites. 
The man of the world has all his good things now, and it is 
a miserable, poor portion. The believer's good things are 
to come. They are in Heaven. 

"And he shall begin to deliver Israel." Samson only 
began to deliver Israel, for it was not till the days of Da- 
vid, that the Philistines were entirely subdued. u Begin to 
deliver" seems here to mean, some deliverance — pledges, 
specimens of what their God was able to do for them, and 
proofs that although they had been so grievously oppressed 
by the Amorites on their eastern border, and now by the 
Philistines on the west, still he had not wholly forsaken 
them. The deliverance begun by Samson was most timely. 
This was the darkest hour of their oppression. Their con- 
dition was most humiliating and their enemies most insult- 
ingly cruel. It was God's time for Moses to come, when 
the tale of bricks was doubled. " Begin to deliver" also 
suggests that God's usual method is to work gradually. He 
has ordered that one shall sow, and another reap. One lays 
the foundation, another brings forth the capstone with 
shoutings, crying " grace, grace, unto it.' ; 

Samson was the first hero of the tribe of Dan. Jacob in 
his dying blessing had said : " Dan shall be a serpent by the 
way, an adder in the path, biting the heels of the horse, so 
that his rider shall fall backwards." Gen. xlix. 16, 17. And 
as the name Dan signifies judge or judgment, it has been 
suggested, that it was a divine foretelling of Samson, that 
Jacob uttered in dying, when he said, "Dan shall judge his 



samson's parents — the hero promised. Gl 

people." That is, of this tribe shall arise a distinguished 
judge. And this could be no other than Samson. The 
prophecy related to the fortunes and exploits of Dan's pos- 
terity, and not to himself personally, and was fulfilled more 
leniarkably in Manoah's son, than in any other man of his 
tribe. As the territory of Dan bordered on the cities of the 
Philistines, it was natural for them to be the most exposed 
to their depredations. It was therefore proper that the 
avenger and deliverer of Israel should arise out of this 
tribe. 

We see also that afflictions are occasions for God's ap- 
pearance. Divine help is always opportunely. The promise 
is that grace shall be given to us not before, but according 
to our day. Only the sick really know the blessings of 
recovery to health. If Manoah's wife had not been in grief, 
the angel had not been sent to comfort her. It has been 
happily remarked that in the Bible angels and prophets 
were often sent with glad tidings to women that were with- 
out children, and in much sorrow on that account. And it 
has been asked why was this, and why were the sons thus 
promised so distinguished, since but few great men have 
sons equal to themselves? There is an answer to all the 
points of this inquiry without impeaching either the justice 
or goodness of God. The inferiority of the sons of great 
men may be owing to the weakness of the mother, or to the 
neglect of their early training. It is well known that some 
distinguished men have married women not at all their 
equals, or fit to be their companions. And it is quite as 
well known, that great men are so occupied with public 
cares, or so diligently employed in the pursuit of knowledge, 
that their own children are often neglected. The main 
point in hand here, however, is the illustration that God's 
gracious deliverances are always opportunely sent. I am 
aware that various conjectures have been made to satisfy the 
6 



62 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

rather over curious, if not profane, infidel question — Why 
did the angel appear to the wife rather than to the husband? 
No reason is stated. Nor do I see that we are under any 
obligations to vindicate our narrative for this omission. The 
fact of the angel's appearance is recorded. But we do not 
know whether he was sent to the woman, because it was 
her reproach rather than her husband's that she was not 
fruitful; or whether it was because she was to endure the 
pain of parturition; or because she took the matter more 
to heart than her husband did. If we must find a reason, 
the last is most to our mind. For it is always true, that 
God's mercies are well-timed and properly directed. The 
history of the pious proves conclusively, that if Satan ply 
his heavy batteries upon the weakest, God does not fail to 
address consolation to those that are most in need. The 
promises of God are like a certain kind of bridge; the more 
heavy the pressure upon them, the stronger they are. The 
believer is fortified abundantly with exceeding great and 
precious promises. Eve was the most dejected; to her there- 
fore was the promise especially addressed. It is not said, 
Adam's seed; but the seed of the woman shall bruise the 
serpent's head. Manoah's wife is the most troubled, to her 
therefore is the divine messenger sent; and sent to her: 1. 
Because the announcement to a barren woman of the birth 
of a distinguished son, would impress her and her husband 
and countrymen with the idea that such a son was from the 
Lord, and designed by him to be a special blessing. All 
children are divine gifts. They are God's heritage. They 
come only at his bidding. But when some special mission 
was designed, it was proper to give distinction to the ap- 
pointment. 2. A son given under such solemn promises and 
instruction would be better taken care of. A gift thus 
made would be more highly valued. The education of 
children is a fearful responsibility. And even the best mo- 



samson's parents — the hero promised. 63 

thers need divine help and admonitions. In the East it is 
still considered a disgrace and a mark of divine displeasure, 
to have a childless house. Among the ancient Hebrews the 
desire for children was rendered even more intense than 
among other nations, because of the promises. Every 
Hebrew wife seems to have hoped she would be the mother 
of the Messiah, or at least of his progenitor. Vows and 
prayers and expensive ceremonies were resorted to as a means 
of prevailing upon God to give them children. And to this 
day, in the schools of the East, boys may be seen with elf 
locks, which are memorials of vows to God for favour granted 
in their gift. See verses srx, seven, and eight. "Man of God," 
that is, a holy prophet. "Very terrible," that is, according 
to Diodati, "majestical, glorious and sparkling with light." 
The woman seems to say, his countenance was so like that 
of an angel of God — so commanding, so awful, and inspired 
me with such awe, that I feared to ask him any questions. 

"Samson had not a better mother than Manoah had a 
wife." As a good wife, she at once told her husband of 
God's messenger. And Manoah at once applies at head- 
quarters. He goes immediately to prayer, saying, my 
Lord, I pray thee, let that man of God my wife speaks of 
come again, and tell us fully how we are to bring up the 
child. He had not seen God's messenger. He has yet 
but a meagre account of the interview; but his faith takes 
hold of the promise, nothing doubting. 

Josephus thinks, but without authority, that Manoah's 
miud was disturbed by what his wife had said of the man 
of God, and that he wished to have some further knowledge 
of this strange visitor. There is not a syllable, however, to 
warrant any such jealous suspicion. On the contrary, his 
desire was to obtain information as to the bringing up of the 
child. His wife in all things seems to have been dutiful, 
confiding, and affectionate. She reports at once, as a good 



64 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

wife should have done, the angelic message, to her husband 
— doubtless because she wished him to share in the joy of 
such a promise, and desired his help to keep all the admoni- 
tions given to her. She seems to have been so overjoyed at 
the announcement that she was to have a son, that she ran 
away from the man of God, hastening home from the field, 
without asking him how she was to bring up a child to whom 
so important a mission was committed. 

And surely Manoah's solicitude to have more full instruc- 
tion from the angel was well. For the care of children is a 
very great concern. Happy would it be for us as a people, 
if all our parents, like this pious Danite, oftener prayed: 
u Teach me what we shall do to the child that shall be born 
to us." 

From Manoah and his wife let us learn the duty and 
privilege of dedicating our little ones to God. He has a 
property in us and our households that cannot be destroyed. 
Nor does he ever relinquish or alienate his rights to our 
children. It is therefore our duty to acknowledge him in 
our families, and to dedicate to him the children he has 
given us. This dedication is a solemn covenant, as well as 
a sacrament. In it God says to us : Take these little ones 
and bring them up for me, and I will give thee thy wages. 
And we answer, Lord, we dedicate them to thee, imploring 
thy blessing to rest upon them. 

The care of children should begin before they are born — 
even before they are conceived. A celebrated physician 
says: "The first duty parents owe to their children is, to 
convey health and strength, a good constitution of body and 
mind to them, as far as it is in their power; by a proper 
care of their own health, and a conscientious abstinence from 
vice and excess of every kind." The ancient Romans were 
extremely careful as to the health and condition of mothers. 
If ignorance as to the effect of a mother's health and state of 



SAMSON'S TARENTS — THE HERO PROMISED. 65 

mind on the constitution of her child could ever be plead as 
an excuse for entailing a host of ailments upon her posterity, 
it surely cannot now be offered; for by means of the press 
and of public lecturing, the whole subject has been popular- 
ized — perhaps too much so. At least ignorance is no longer 
an excuse. And if the laws of nature on this subject are 
well understood in their application to the lower animals, 
why should they be neglected or despised in man? Health 
of mind and body should be a prerequisite of marriage. And 
the most enlightened attention should be bestowed on women 
during their child-bearing. This subject deserves the most 
serious consideration from patriots, philanthropists, and chris- 
tians. The civil, intellectual, and moral well-being of our 
nation is and will be greatly affected by a proper regard to 
it. It is not a matter of doubt, or a point yet to be discussed. 
It is already demonstrated that many diseases, tempers, dis- 
positions, and habits are hereditary. " Many of the ill habits 
of body that children bring into the world with them are 
owing to the irregularities of their mothers; (and of their 
fathers;) and most of the diseases of which so many young 
children die, arise from a bad mass of blood communicated 
to them." "Women with child ought conscientiously to 
avoid whatever they have reason to think will be any way 
prejudicial to the health or good constitution of the fruit of 
their life." — Henrg. 

The proper idea of educating children is to fit them for 
the duties of life and the realities of a fast-coming eternity. 
To do this they must be trained. Training combines, 1. 
both instruction and government. Its field is both the mind 
and the body. It reduces to life the precepts which are to 
regulate them when they are grown. To train a child 
properly is to form it again into the image in which man 
was created. It is to recover it from the ruins of the fall. 
This cannot be done at once. But it can be begun, and 
6* 



66 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

the completion will follow in heaven. To train a child re- 
quires patience, faith ; courage, perseverance, and divine 
assistance. 

2. To bring up a child in " the nurture and admonition 
of the Lord," instruction and example are essential. It is 
the irature of a child to imitate what is around it. The in- 
fluence of example is as certain as the action of the air upon 
its body. Influences educate the child long before it is 
large enough to be sent from home to school. It is in the 
unwritten, unspoken teachings of home in our tenderest 
years that our destiny has its beginnings. Every word, 
tone, look, frown, smile, and tear, witnessed in childhood, 
performs its part in training the infant for eternity. In- 
struction should begin early, but let it be oral, and consist 
chiefly of a few moral precepts, Bible stories, and chaste 
fables. A great error in our times is the pressing of the 
infantile mind ; cramming the memory with what the child 
does not understand, and at the same time so compressing and 
cramping it as to prevent the proper physical development, 
and impair the reasoning faculties. Another of the alarm- 
ing evils of our day is the circulation of demoralizing publi- 
cations. Earnest warning and entreaties on this subject 
have often fallen from this pulpit. But the warning cannot 
be too often repeated. The influence of immoral prints and 
books is calculated more than anything else to corrupt the 
morals, and enfeeble the intellects of the juvenile portion of 
our country. To circulate such publications is a serious 
offence against God and man • and yet I greatly fear it is a 
growing evil ; nor do I see any corrective so available, so 
potential and so practicable, as family government and in- 
struction. Let the home be for amusement, pleasure, know- 
ledge, and religion as attractive as possible. 

3. In the bringing up of children, prayer, deep, earnest, 
believing prayer is essential. The preservation of children 



SAMSON'S PARENTS — THE HERO PROMISED. G7 

is a constant miracle. After all our solicitude and pains- 
taking, and watching and heart-bleeding, we have to trust 
them to God. We are shut up to wrestling with God, as 
the last resort saying, Peradventure they may live ) or as 
Abraham himself, Oh that Ishmael might live ! Parental 
solicitude is not only justified, but expressly enjoined in 
God's word. The apostle speaks of it, as a great commen- 
dation of Timothy and of his mother and grandmother, that 
from his infancy he had been made acquainted with the 
Scriptures, which were able to make him wise unto salva- 
tion through faith in Christ Jesus. " Train up a child/' 
says Solomon, " in the way he should go, and when he 
is old, he will not depart from it." 

He is not prepared to discharge his duties to himself, his 
country, and his God, as a parent, who does not see and feel 
that the art of education is both the most important and 
difficult in the world. It has been so considered by many of 
the greatest men that have ever lived. Many of the greatest 
minds and largest hearts have spent their wisdom and 
strength, in advancing the education of mankind in morals 
and religion. 

By Manoah's example, we are taught where to obtain aid 
and direction in bringing up our children. As soon as he 
is informed that he is to have a son, he falls to praying that 
he may know how to order the child — to know what he 
should do unto him. Yerses eight and twelve. " When I 
see the strength of Manoah's faith, I marvel not that he 
had a Samson to his son ) he saw not the messenger, he 
heard not the errand, he examined not the circumstances; 
yet now he takes thought, not whether he should have a 
son, but how he shall order the son which he must have." 
—Hall. 

It is true that we are eminently blessed with elementary 
school books, and the schools of our country, especially for 



68 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

young children and the acquirement of a practical educa- 
tion, are not surpassed by those of any other nation. But 
it deserves to be always kept in mind, that in educating 
there is no book that can take the place of the word of God, 
and no means that can be made a substitute for prayer. It 
is the great business of a parent to secure a sound mind in 
a sound body for his child, and then to baptize him day by 
day with heavenly influences in answer to prayer. And 
surely it is of such children we may hope, as patriots and as 
followers of Christ, that they will be deliverers of Israel. 
The age of miracles is past. We have no right to expect 
angels to tell us what to do unto our children. We have a 
more sure word of prophecy (instruction.) The divine 
word is ever speaking to us, saying, " This is the way, walk 
ye in it." Conscience, enlightened by the divine word and 
spirit, is also constantly teaching us the way in which we 
should go. The Bible direction is to acknowledge God in 
all our ways, and he will direct our steps. Manoah's mind 
was aroused by his wife's tidings ; and his faith was at once 
strong ; and being all the more encouraged by the favours 
already given, he prayed to God to teach him more fully 
what he was to do. And though secret things belong to 
God, revealed things belong to us and to our children. 
And whenever the soul bows down before the Father of spi- 
rits, earnestly seeking to know his will, in some way or other, 
he will teach us his paths, Psalm xxv. 8. 

" Thus at the flaming forge of life 
Our fortunes must be wrought, 
Thus on its sounding anvil shaped 
Each burning deed and thought." 



THE THEOrilANIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 69 



CHAPTER V. 

JESUS CHRIST IN THE THEOPHANIES OF THE OLD TES- 
TAMENT. 



Appeared before mine eyes 



A man of God : his habit and his guise 
Were such as holy prophets used to wear; 
But in his dreadful looks there did appear 
Something that made me tremble ; in his eye 
Mildness was mixt with awful majesty." 

Quarks' Samson. 

Testamentum Vetus de Christo exhibendo, Novum de Christo exhibito 
agit : Novum in veteri latet, Vetus in novo patet. — Augustine. 

" Scriptura omnis in duo Testamenta divisa est * * Judaei Veteri 
utuntur, nos Novo : sed tamen diversa non sunt, quia Novum Veteris 
adimpletio est, et in utroque idem Testator est Christus." 

Lactantius, Div. Inst. iv. 20. 

In Judges xiii. 8 — 21, we have a more detailed account 
of the appearance of the angel of the Lord, than is to he 
found in any other part of the Bible. For this reason, as 
well as on account of the great intrinsic merit of the sub- 
ject, the narrative of Samson is suspended till the next 
chapter. 

" Angel" is rather a term of office than of nature. This 
term is used in the Bible to denote a messenger both hu- 
man and spiritual, and also impersonal agents, as winds, 
fires, remarkable dispensations, &c. It seems to denote any 
vehicle or medium by which the Creator made known his 
presence or executed his will. There are evil as well as 



70 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

good angels, and sometimes it is thought, " angel of the Lord" 
means a personification of divine judgments. (See Bush's 
notes on Gen. xvi. 7 ; xxiv. 7 ; and Ex. iii. 2.) The most 
frequent application of this term is undoubtedly to the spe- 
cial manifestation of the Lord to the patriarchs and prophets. 
The Shekinah is called the angel of the Lord. Ex. xiv. 19. 
But in all such visible symbols of the divine glory, Jehovah 
himself, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the very 
same that appeared in the bush, and by whose good will 
Joseph was preserved, is to be considered as present. "The 
angel of the Lord" is literally the Angel-Jehovah, or Jeho- 
vah, the Sent One, and is none other than God manifest, 
the Lord Jesus Christ. In the Bible, God the Father is 
never spoken of as sent, but the Messiah is so represented 
in the Old Testament, and Christ is so spoken of in the 
New Testament, and actually claims himself to have come 
from and to be sent by the Father. In finding therefore 
that the angel of the Lord is Jehovah, God, the Lord him- 
self, we shall establish our proposition, that in the Theo- 
phanies of the Old Testament we have Jesus Christ mani- 
fested as God. 

" And the angel of the Lord came again," v. 9. This is 
the same angel that appeared first to the woman, and the 
same that appeared to Abraham, Lot, Moses, Joshua, Gid- 
eon, and others, and is the Messiah-Christ. In the eight- 
eenth verse, " the angel of the Lord said unto him, Why 
askest thou thus after my name, seeing it is secret ?" Here 
the Hebrew word for secret is the same that Isaiah uses for 
wonderful. Isa. ix. 6. " And his name shall be called 
wonderful." Hence it is concluded, that the true meaning 
of the clause, " seeing it is secret," is, it is wonderful. The 
angel then means to say that, his name Wonderful, signified 
that he was the promised Messiah. 

In Genesis xxii. 11, the same appellation is used. "And 



THE THEOPHANIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 71 

the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and 
said, Abraham, Abraham/' and yet in the first verse of the 
same chapter it is said that it was God who tempted Abra- 
ham, and commanded him to sacrifice his son. See also 
verses fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, which clearly identify the 
angel of Jehovah and God as one and the same. And in 
Gen. xxiv. 7, the angel of the Lord is identified with God 
himself. The same thing is clear from Ex. iii. 2, 6, 10, 14; 
Numb. xx. 22; Judges ii. 5; and vi. 11-40; 2 Samuel 
xxiv. 16; 2 Kings xix. 35; 1 Chron. xxi. 12. 

Now these Scriptures taken together prove, 1. That II a- 
gar, Abraham, and Moses, believed God to be invisible, and 
yet that they had certain direct communications from him. 
There was either a shape, or voice, or both, or some repre- 
sentation of God made to them visibly — some divine mani- 
festation that came in some way within the reach of their 
senses ; and this representation was called the " angel of 
Jehovah," " the angel of his presence/' and was identified 
with Jehovah himself — received the worship, and acknow- 
ledged the attributes, and performed the same works which 
the Scriptures ascribe to God. 

The invisibility as well as the spirituality of the Supreme 
Being is explicitly taught in the Bible — in both the Old and 
the New Testaments. See Ex. xxxiii. 20; Job ix. 11; 
John i. 18; and verse thirty-seven; Rev. i. 20; Col. i. 15; 
Heb. xi. 27; 1 Tim. vi. 16. And yet according to numer- 
ous texts of Scripture, God has been pleased, at various 
times and in different places, to put himself in communica- 
tion with mankind. He has caused his voice to be heard 
and his shape to be seen. In Gen. xvi. 7, we have the first 
distinct divine manifestation revealed by name. Here the 
epithet is the one so often used in the Old Testament — 
" angel of the Lord." And it is evident from the text that 
Hagar understood the angel of Jehovah to be Jehovah him- 



72 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

self; for she called the name of the Jehovah that spake 
unto her, " thou God of visibility."* These manifestations 
of God were made in a way suitable to the senses and capac- 
ities of man. The divine glory was of necessity veiled. 
And hence the manifestation was called '* the angel of God's 
presence," that is, his messenger. So much of Godhead 
was manifested as the creature could bear. And by this 
method of revealing himself, it pleased God to keep open a 
communication with our race, until the fulness of time 
came, when he actually manifested himself in the flesh. 
By these divine appearances the faith of mankind was kept 
alive, that in due time the promise should be fulfilled, and 
the Word should become flesh, and the Seed of the woman 
bruise the serpent's head. 

2. The appellation " angel of the Lord," therefore, in the 
Old Testament is to be understood as meaning the Messiah. 
Such divine appearances were manifestly pledges of God's 
continued good will to men. They were evidences of his 
repeated gracious interpositions. They were types of the 
coming incarnation. In the form of " a man of God," or 
of an angel, it was Jesus Christ, that appeared to the patri- 
archs, as a pledge of his future coming into the world as the 
long promised Messiah. The angel that redeemed Jacob 
from all evil, he represents as identical with the God before 
whom his fathers had walked, and who had fed him all his 
life long. And he also makes his vows to this angel as the 
God of Bethel, and the same who spoke to him in Padan- 
aram. And Hosea, speaking of this angel of Jacob, identi- 
fies him with Jehovah. See Gen. xlviii. 15, 16; and xxxi. 
11-13. Jacob's language is remarkable : " The angel 

* Boothroyd, Le Clerc, Houbigant, Michaelis, says this is the true 
reading of the passage. In their opinion also, the name of the well is 
" the well of the invisible God." The Targum of Jonathan, the Greek, 
Arabic, Chaldec, and Syriac have it thus. 



THE THEOPHANIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 73 

which redeemed me from all evil," by which he does not 
mean a creature, — does not mean another and a different 
being from the God of his fathers, but an expletive of the 
name God. Is it scriptural usage then for God to be called 
by the name, Angel ? In Jacob's earlier life, we have an 
instance. He wrestled with an angel at the ford Jabbok 
till the breaking of day, and yet he says, speaking of this 
angel at Peniel, "I have seen God face to face." In the 
divine revelation to Abraham of the doom of the cities of 
the plain, Jehovah himself, or God the Son, is clearly to be 
recognized in one of the angels. In the third chapter of 
Exodus, we have one of the most illustrious recorded ap- 
pearances of the angel of the Lord to be found in the Bible. 
Here the angel of the Lord, and God, and Jehovah are in- 
terchangeable. In the second verse he who is called the 
angel of the Lord (Jehovah) appears in the bush, and in 
the fourth verse he is called Lord (Jehovah) and God. And 
in the sixth verse, the same An gel- Jehovah who appears in 
the bush and is called Lord and God, speaking of himself 
says : "I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, 
the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid 
his face ) for he was afraid to look upon God." And in 
verses eleven and twelve, Moses said unto God, addressing 
the angel of the Lord, of the first verse, who was in the 
bush, and in the fourteenth verse — " God said unto Moses, 
I am that I am ; and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the 
children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you." And in 
the next verse he repeats that he is the Lord God of their fa- 
thers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Throughout 
the whole narrative and dialogue of Moses' call and inaugu- 
ration into office as deliverer of Israel, the angel of the Lord 
is Jehovah, and in this appearance of the Lord God, we 
recognize no other personage than the angel of the Cove- 
nant, the angel of Jehovah's presence, who is Messiah- 



74 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

Christ. The An gel- Jehovah, who dwelt in the glory-cloud, 
and who pledged himself to conduct the Hebrews to the 
land of promise, the apostle tells us expressly was Christ. 
1 Cor. x. 9. We have seen that the angel professes in the 
eighteenth verse that his name is the same that we find 
Isaiah applying to the Messiah in ix. 6. And again in Isa. 
xlii. 19, the same term — angel — that is used in the text is 
given to the Messiah, who is also called the Angel of the 
Covenant. See Mai. iii. 1; Matt. xii. 18-21. Compare 
also Isa. Ix. lj Heb. ii. 14; and Isa. xl. 3. 

There is a gradual development of truth as taught in the 
Bible. The existence of God is assumed His unity and 
spirituality are then taught. His invisibility and yet palp- 
able manifestations are asserted. Repeated proofs are given 
that Jehovah was not the mere tutelar God of the Hebrews. 
This was one of the great truths demonstrated by the awful 
controversy between Moses and Pharaoh, which was indeed 
a conflict between Jehovah's prime minister and the gods 
of Egypt. No intelligent and attentive reader of the Bible 
can fail to discern that a distinction is made between Jeho- 
vah as invisible, and Jehovah as manifested to men. In 
many parts of the Old Testament we find an exalted being, 
introduced as " the angel, servant, or messenger of Jeho- 
vah," who speaks of himself as distinct from the invisible 
and eternal Jehovah, and yet assumes to himself the hon- 
ours, attributes, and works of Jehovah, and suffers himself 
to be addressed as God. Now how are we to understand 
these passages in which " the angel of God" is thus intro- 
duced ? 

The true interpretation of the phrase, "angel of the Lord," 
and the only one that reconciles all the passages in which it 
occurs and the allusions made to it in the Bible, is this, 
namely : that the angel of Jehovah in the Old Testament is 
Jesus Christ, who as Jehovah's servant, messenger, or angel, 



THE TIIEOPIIANIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 75 

was manifested before the incarnation, as a proof that his 
heart was on his great work of redeeming man, by becom- 
ing a man, and a pledge that he would come in the fulness 
of time, and be actually born of a woman, made under the 
law, to redeem them that were under the law. (Gal. iv. 4.) 
The angel of the Lord then in the Theophanies of the Old 
Testament was the Messiah sent from God, who was the 
word that was God, but became flesh and dwelt among us, 
full of grace and truth. 

From heaven he came, of heaven he spoke, 
Dark clouds of gloomy night he broke, 
Unveiling an immortal day. 

That our views may be the more clearly understood, we 
repeat and sum up what we believe the Bible teaches on 
this subject. 

I. There is one, only living and true God. This one 
supreme and only living and true God is alike and equally 
the God of the New Testament and of the Old Testament. 
The religion of the two great divisions of the Bible is one 
religion. The Bible is not a heterogeneous or contradic- 
tory mass of old or obsolete writings, but a harmonious and 
organized whole, each part perfect in its place and of its 
kind. 

II. The only living and true u God is a Spirit, infinite, 
eternal, unchangeable, invisible." He has condescended, 
however, in times past to speak to the fathers by the pro- 
phets, and by his Son Jesus Christ, and his apostles. He 
made known his will to the patriarchs, prophets, and apos- 
tles, by his Spirit, operating directly on their minds, by 
dreams, visions, voices, ecstasies, symbolic acts, appearances, 
or manifestations in the form of an angel, or by some repre- 
sentation of his glory, which is called in the Old Testament, 
the Shekinah. 



76 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

III. The leading idea of the revelation of God in the 
Old Testament was, the coming of the Messiah. Other 
great truths are taught or illustrated, but they are all in 
order to prepare the way for the fulfilment of this promise. 
And the substance of the New Testament is a record of 
Messiah's coming, and therein of the fulfilment of the Old 
Testament Scriptures. 

The great design, therefore, of the Old Testament has 
been accomplished. The Hebrew dispensation, with the 
divine oracles, prepared mankind, both negatively and 
positively, for the appearance of the Messiah, the world-re- 
deeming God. The purpose of divine revelation is stated in 
the first promise in the garden of Eden, and is prosecuted 
through the whole of the old dispensation. The testimony 
of Jesus is the bond of union, and centre in which all the 
Old Testament harmonizes. Without this purpose in view 
the Old Testament is but a loose, scattered, and badly 
arranged heap of poetry, history, morals, and memoirs. 
But with such a purpose revealed, and running through all 
its history, we can understand how it teaches, typifies, pro- 
mises, and predicts a great salvation through the ineffable 
incarnation. 

The whole scope and end of prophecy was the testimony 
of Jesus. The entire history of God's revelation in Old 
Testament times, is nothing but an utterance prophetic of a 
coming Messiah. "And upon that revelation of facts, and 
prediction by facts, is grounded that series of predictions by 
words, which God has been pleased to communicate in a 
supernatural manner, by his special agents."* "In the 
historical, the didactic, the prophetical portions of the New 
Testament, we discern the Old Testament, the old law, living 
again, in a new and spiritual life; not embalmed and laid 

• Lee on Inspiration. 



THE TIIEOPHANIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 77 

With reverential care aside in the grave, but arisen from the 
dead, and alive for evermore, like its own divine Founder." 

Stephen and John, and the saints in glory are then 
with Moses and Elias, as the apostles were with them on 
the mount of transfiguration. They all sing alike the song 
of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb. — 
Rev. xv. 3. 

The Bible, as a history, testifies of Jesus. And the two 
great divisions of the Bible, the Old and New Testaments, 
are indissolubly connected, and of co-equal authority. Jesus 
Christ is the central point to which all the rays of revela- 
tion converge, and from which they again flow by the min- 
istrations of his own Eternal Spirit. 

An able author of one of the Hulsean lectures, speaking 
of the past development of the Scriptures, holds the follow- 
ing beautiful language: "This treasure of divine truth, once 
given, has only gradually revealed itself; how the history 
of the church, the difficulties, the trials, the struggles, the 
temptations in which it has been involved, have interpreted 
to it its own records. * * * Now there was much 
written for it there as with sympathetic ink, invisible for a 
season, yet ready to flash out in lines and characters of light, 
whenever the appointed day and hour had arrived ; so that 
in this way the Scripture has been to the church as their 
garments to the children of Israel, which, during all the 
years of their pilgrimage in the desert, waxed not old; yea, 
according to rabbinical tradition, kept pace and measure 
with their bodies, growing with their growth, fitting the 
man as they had fitted the child, and this, until the forty 
years of their sojourn in the wilderness had expired. Or to 
use another comparison, which may serve to illustrate our 
meaning: Holy Scripture, thus progressively unfolding what 
it contains, might be likened fitly to some magnificent land- 
scape, on which the sun is gradually rising, and ever as it 
7* 



78 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

rises is bringing out one headland into light and prominence, 
and then another; anon, kindling the glory-smitten summit 
of some far mountain, and presently lighting up the recesses 
of some near valley which had hitherto abided in gloom; 
and so, travelling on, till nothing remains in shadow, no 
crook nor corner hid from the light and heat of it, but the 
whole prospect stands out in the clearness and splendour of 
the highest noon. 

"The true idea of scriptural development is this, that the 
church, informed and quickened by the Spirit of God, more 
and more discovers what in Holy Scripture is given her; 
but it is not thus that she unfolds by an independent power 
anything further therefrom. She has always possessed what 
she now possesses of doctrine and truth, only not always 
with the same distinctness of consciousness. She has not 
added to her wealth, but she has become more and more 
aware of that wealth; her dowry has remained always the 
same, but that dowry was so rich, and so rare, that only 
little by little she has counted over and taken stock and in- 
ventory of her jewels. She has consolidated her doctrine, 
compelled thereto by the provocation of her enemies, or in- 
duced to it by the growing sense of her needs. She has 
brought together utterances in Holy Writ, and those which, 
apart, were comparatively barren, when thus married — when 
each had thus found its complement in the other — have been 
fruitful to her. Those which, apart, meant little to her, 
have been seen to mean much when thus brought together, 
and read each by the light of the other. In these senses 
she has enlarged her dominion, her dominion having become 
larger to her." * 

IV. It is not true, then, that the Almighty has allowed 
any of his dispensations to prove a failure. It is not true 

* See Trench's Hulsean Lecture for 1853. 



THE TIIEOrilANIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 79 

tliat the religion of Eden proving a failure, another and a 
new one was tried; and then, when the patriarchal faith 
failed, the Creator again tried to meet the wants of our race, 
by patching up the patriarchal religion with that of Moses; 
and was again obliged to add the teachings of the prophets; 
and, finally, becoming tired of the old religion altogether, he 
superseded it by introducing Christianity. This is as false 
as it is blasphemous. There is a perfect harmony through- 
out the Bible. Augustin has well said, "Deus opera mutat, 
nee mutat consilium." (Conf. i. 4.) In all the various 
modes used for communicating the divine will, we find but 
one and the same religion — the Pentateuch, the Prophets, the 
Psalms, the Gospels, and the Epistles are given to us by 
one and the same Spirit of inspiration. The revelation is 
from God, and the record of that revelation is by the inspira- 
tion of the Holy Spirit. The Bible not only contains the 
word of God, but the Bible is the word of God, who is our 
Maker and final Judge. 

Though the writers of the Bible are scattered over more 
than twenty centuries, its several books are but different 
members of one organized whole, and each member is per- 
fectly adapted to the great purpose of the divine Author, 
and pointing all the time to him as the God and Father of 
our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have received the 
atonement. 

It certainly cannot follow because, as Bretschneider states, 
and truly, that the doctrines of God and morality are far 
more perfectly taught in the New Testament, by Jesus 
Christ and his Apostles, than in the Old Testament, that, 
therefore, the Old Testament is obsolete. This were to say 
that the lad were lost in the man. The morning and the 
evening are but one day. But the morning twilight is in 
order to the noon-day splendour. To say that the Old Tes- 
tament is superfluous, and of no authority, in the church of 



80 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

God, because, in spirituality and higher morals, it has been 
surpassed by the New Testament, is absurd. A boy's gram- 
mar was just the book he wanted when he had to learn the 
elements of language. And in manhood the grammar of 
his youth is not superfluous or lost because he embodies all 
the knowledge it contained, and even more. The elements 
of language are not superfluous to the language matured. 
If the promises, types, and predictions of the Old Testa- 
ment be arranged, therefore, as stars, in clusters and con- 
stellations, we can readily see how one arose in Eden, and 
another to Enoch, and another to Noah after the flood, and 
another to Abraham, and another and another, till the whole 
heavens became luminous, when the star in the East guided 
the wise men to the infant Redeemer at Bethlehem. 

V. We are now prepared, I trust, to say that " the angel 
of the Lord/' the angel of Jehovah's presence, and the di- 
vine manifestations made in the Old Testament, were fore- 
shadowings of the great Incarnation. In them the Son of 
God declared that his delights were with the sons of men 
from all eternity, and was manifesting forth his glory in 
such measure as was proper to keep alive the promise of his 
coming, when the fulness of time should arrive. And in 
the application of the appellation Angel of Jehovah to the 
Messiah, we have a proof of the divinity of our Lord Jesus 
Christ. 

u No man hath seen God at any time ; the only begotten 
Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared 
him." " He is God manifest in the flesh." — John i. 18 ; 1 
Tim. iii. 16. 

It is not, therefore, without reason that the learned are 
of the opinion that this ninth verse is of peculiar construc- 
tion and emphasis, meaning that it was the Lord God him- 
self to whom Manoah prayed, who hearkened to his voice, 



THE THEOPIIANIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 81 

and then appeared to him and his wife, and that he ap- 
peared to them in the person of his Son, veiled as an angel. 

VI. In all the varieties of manner in which, in times 
past, God spake unto the fathers, the Logos, the Word, of 
John i., was the llevealer. This is emphatically true of 
the revelations made by the Angel-Jehovah. In the reve- 
lation of the divine will " by facts, by words," and by ap- 
pearances, or visible forms of the divine glory, of which 
record is made in the Old Testament, there is a constant re- 
ference to the Author of Creation, implying by such a re- 
ference the right and power to make all such revelations ; 
but the most remarkable manifestation of the Logos, " the 
Word," in the Old Testament, if I am not greatly mistaken, 
is this of the Angel-Jehovah. 

This is the mysterious personage who appeared to Abra- 
ham, u the friend of God," who rejoiced in seeing Messiah's 
day. And in the various passages of scripture in which the 
appearance of the Angel of Jehovah is described, we find 
him using the first person, and speaking, and acting, and 
receiving homage and worship, not as a distinct person from, 
but as the manifestation or visible operation of the God- 
head. The Angel of the Lord, then, is to be understood 
as Jehovah-Jesus in his visibility. And in this manifesta- 
tion of Jesus Christ in the Theophanies of the Old Testa- 
ment, we have, in some degree, an explanation of how he 
came to be " the desire of all nations j" for it is well known 
that heathen nations of old, both savage and civilized, had 
some notion of the incarnation of their gods, and of the 
necessity of such incarnation. 

If we are not mistaken, Messiah Jesus is expressly called 
an Angel, the Angel of the Lord, in the Old Testament, 
and plainly so represented in the New. In addition to the 
texts which represent the Logos as the Hevealer of God, 
there are some that speak of the same personage as an An- 



82 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

gel, the Angel. The promise to Moses was, that on the 
withdrawal of the Lord himself, as he appeared to him at 
first, " my presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee 
rest." And Isaiah says, "In all their afflictions he was 
afflicted, and the Angel of his presence saved them." Ex. 
xxxiii. 14, and Isa. lxiii. 9. And the Apostle says, refer- 
ring to the Israelites, " Neither let us tempt Christ as some 
of them also tempted (him,) and were destroyed of serpents." 
1 Cor. x. 9. And again, "Behold, I send an Angel before 
thee, to keep thee in the way; beware of him, and obey his 
voice ; provoke him not, for he will not pardon your trans- 
gressions; for my Name is in him." This is clearly a pro- 
mise of a- distinct divine person, who was to go with them; 
the same, doubtless, who appeared in the pillar cloud. 
This whole class of texts is explained still further by refer- 
ring to Hebrews iii. 1 : " Wherefore, holy brethren, par- 
takers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and 
High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus." Now the 
etymology of the term Apostle shows that it is identical in 
signification with angel. But one part of the Apostle's 
argument in this epistle is to show Christ's superiority to 
angels ; there was, then, a reason why he should not use in 
this place the ordinary term, but the corresponding one. 
Both angel and apostle mean one sent. Our Lord repeat- 
edly spoke of himself as one sent, or come from the Father. 
John iii. 16, 34 ; vi. 29 ; x. 36 ; xx. 21, and elsewhere. 
The Apostle's argument, and the design of the whole epistle, 
require that we understand his allusion in this place to be 
to the Angel of Jehovah — of the divine presence spoken of 
in the Old Testament. As Christ is emphatically "he whom 
God hath sent," so he says : Let us consider the Apostle and 
High Priest of our profession — and we shall see that in 
Christianity we have a Messenger from God, who is higher 
than the angels of the Old Testament — who is the Angel- 



THE TIIEOPIIANTES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 8P> 

Jehovah himself. The Old Testament saints were believers 
in the same Redeemer that Stephen saw, standing on the 
right hand of God. I beg to conclude this subject by quot- 
ing the following passages from Dr. Mill and Professor Ols- 
hausen : 

" The Angel of the Lord who preceded the children of 
Israel from Egypt, in the cloud and in the fire, was the 
Lord himself, (agreeably to Ex. xiii. 20, 21, and xiv. 19, 
20 ; Numb. xx. 6, etc.,) possessor of the incommunicable 
name, Jehovah; and that this Angel of the Covenant, as he 
is termed in Mai. iii. 1; Gen. xlviii. 15, 16, etc., is the un- 
created Word, who appeared in visible form to Jacob and 
Moses, and who was, in the fulness of time, incarnate in 
the person of Jesus Christ, is the known undoubted faith 
of the church of God, and need not to be enlarged on here. 
This same uncreated Angel, in whom was the name of the 
Lord, is promised by the mouth of Moses/' Olshausen, in 
one of his tracts on " The deeper sense of scripture," 
beautifully illustrates the sense in which the old dispensa- 
tion, the law and the prophets, is fulfilled in the New Tes- 
tament : "The law, with all its ordinances, is like a grain 
of seed which includes in itself the whole law of the forma- 
tion of the plant. Should the plant spring up, the grain 
of seed must die; a power which would cause it to continue 
in its isolated subsistence, would be just as destructive as 
the Judaizing teachers, with whom Paul was forced to con- 
tend. But notwithstanding such a fact, the law of the 
germ which lives no longer, invisibly penetrates the entire 
plant ; so that in the plant's concentrated formations, the 
law, renewing its youth, repeatedly presents itself again 
in the fruit. Thus the law was apparently dissolved by 
Christ, but only in order to be fulfilled in its spirit in every 
iota." 

In conclusion, 1. Our aim in this chapter, as in the third, 



84 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

has been to vindicate the plan of God's revelation as well 
as the revelation itself, by showing that infinite wisdom 
has not made any mistake in the different dispensations 
from Adam to Christ. Our blessed Lord never let a hint 
fall from his lips that any part of the Old Testament was 
done away. On the contrary, he made it the basis of all 
his teachings, as did his apostles after him. And through- 
out his whole ministry, he represents himself as fulfilling in 
his person and office, the scheme of divine love as revealed 
in the law and the Psalms and the prophets. The Old Tes- 
tament and his own sayings are alike imperishable. (See 
Matt. xxiv. 35 ; and Luke xxiv. 44.) He came into the 
world to fulfil all righteousness and make an end of trans- 
gression by offering himself a sacrifice to God, to satisfy 
divine justice, and reconcile us to God. And in doing this 
all things were fulfilled which were written in the law of 
Moses, and in the prophets, and in the Psalms concerning 
him. He came therefore not to annihilate, or abrogate, 
but to confirm and re-institute — " to build again" — " not to 
perpetuate the former scheme, but to extend and to develope 
it." The glorious Architect in the New Testament brings 
out clearly the original design of the Old Testament, which 
had not before been so clearly seen. The Old Testament 
is the basis on which the New is erected, and the stability 
and completeness of both depend on their connection. The 
Old was the shadow of good things to come, which gave 
certain assurance of the reality of the good things to come, 
and some idea of their nature, size, and proportions. The 
New Testament is the embodiment and the record of those 
good things. From Genesis to Malachi we have the out- 
line of the picture, and from Matthew to John the divine, 
we have its filling up and colouring. And the whole is the 
record of a great and precious salvation. The whole his- 
tory of the Jewish people, their ritual and government, is 



THE TIIEOPIIANIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 85 

one grand prophecy of the future Redeemer. The Old Tes- 
tament is as full of the Messiah, the age of the world con- 
sidered, as the New Testament is full of Christ. 

"Abraham, the saint, rejoiced of old 
When visions of the Lord he saw ; 
Moses, the man of God, foretold 
This great fulfiller of his law. 

" The types bore witness to his name, 

Obtained their chief design, and ceased : 
The incense and the bleeding lamb, 
The ark, the altar, and the priest/' 

2. Let us then study the Old Testament as well as the 
New. "The word of God, which is contained in the Old 
and New Testaments, is the only rule to direct us how we 
may glorify and enjoy him." 

Valuable helps for studying the Bible are now happily 
within the reach of Sabbath-school teachers and the heads 
of families. Bible dictionaries, concordances, maps of the 
holy land, Bible illustrations, and oriental travels may be 
consulted with great advantage. But above all, let us ever 
pray for the illumination of the divine Spirit on the sacred 
page, and let us search it with the docility and trustfulness 
of a little child. 

3. One can hardly fail to be impressed, as we are study- 
ing the Bible, especially the record of patriarchal times, and 
of the appearance of the angel of the Lord, with the idea 
that we are very near to God. We seem to see his form 
among the trees of Eden, and to hear his voice as he calls 
to Abraham on Mount Moriah. The riven peaks of Mount 
Sinai seem yet to speak of his awful glory. It was the 
Lord's hand that shut Noah into the ark, and as an angel 
he talked with the patriarchs, and by his Spirit, he dwelt 

8 



86 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

in the prophets. But in the New Testament we are 
brought nearer still to God — to God on a throne of mercy, 
whence we may obtain forgiveness and grace for every time 
of need. 

4. The lives of Old Testament worthies in such close 
communion with God breathe also a pilgrim-like air. They 
declared plainly that they were seeking a better country, 
that is, an heavenly; and God was not ashamed to be called 
their God, for he hath prepared for them a city. See 
Hebrews xi. Are we then like them, pilgrims and strangers ? 
Is our home in heaven ? Our home is where our heart and 
treasures are. But as our life is a journey, on what road 
do we travel, and whither does it lead? On the busy, dusty, 
jostling high road of humanity, we find many turns and 
many rough places, and many a weary hour and many a 
dark and heavy storm lowers over it. But cheer up, fellow 
pilgrim, many are on the same road with you. Many have 
travelled it before you, who are now safely arrived in glory. 
There is one who passed along this same road, travelling in the 
greatness of his strength, and as he overcame, so does he 
give grace and glory to all who follow in his footsteps. You 
are every hour coming nearer to your home, where storms 
will cease, and the weary will be for ever at rest. If the 
night is long and dark, the morning will only be the more 
joyful. If, as pilgrims, you endure hardships in the wilder- 
ness, the land of promise will be all the more pleasant be- 
cause of these trials by the way. 

5. How truly astonishing is the divine condescension! 
The long-suffering of our God is our salvation. As he has 
been pleased to give us the sacred word, we are not to ex- 
pect angelic visitors to teach us our duty. The divine word 
is a sufficient rule to teach us what to believe, and what to 
do, to be saved. The spirit that was in the prophets and 



THE THEOPHANIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 87 

apostles is promised to us. The great Messiah has come. 
We have seen his glory, as of the only begotten of the 
Father. And are we not, some of us, witnesses of his grace 
and truth — that he hath power on earth to forgive sin? Let 
us ever adore him as our Saviour ; and to him be glory for 
ever. Amen. 



88 THE GIANT JUDGE. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE FAMILY SACRIFICE AND CONFERENCE. 

" In his face 

Terror and sweetness laboured for the place : 
Sometimes his sun-bright eyes would shine so fierce 
As if their pointed beams would even pierce 
The soul and strike the amaz'd beholder dead; 
Sometimes their glory would disperse and spread 
More easy flame, and like the star that stood 
O'er Bethlehem, promise and portend some good : 
Mixt was his bright aspect, as if his breath 
Had equal errands both of life and death : 
Glory and mildness seemed to contend 
In his fair eyes." — Quarlea, 

In Judges xiii. 10, 11, the angel is called a man. In 
this the writer follows the woman, and both speak of him, 
as he appeared to them. As soon as the angel appeared the 
second time to the woman, she respectfully entreated that 
he would wait till she could go and fetch her husband; 
and having obtained assurance that he would tarry, she runs 
for Manoah. The pious of those days were familiar with 
angelic visitors, who appeared in the form and usual dress 
of prophets or men of God. Sometimes they were distin- 
guished by a peculiar majesty and sublimity of appearance. 
Pictures of angels still represent them with a glory around 
their head. It is only in the emblematic descriptions of 
them, that they are said to have wings. It is a mistake to 



THE FAMILY SACRIFICE AND CONFERENCE. 89 

represent this angel with wings and in a white robe, as is 
generally done. 

In verses twelve and fourteen, Manoah responds amen to 
all the angel says. As if he had said, Let all you have pro- 
mised to my wife come to pass. I believe. " But how shall 
we order the child, and how shall we do unto hiin?" or as it 
is in the Hebrew, What shall be the rule by which we shall 
govern and teach him? In the fifteenth and twenty-first 
verses, inclusive, we have the conference of the angel with 
Manoah and his wife, and their sacrifice, and the angel's 
ascent into heaven. 

Bread, in the sixteenth verse, is to be taken, as it is often 
in the Bible, for food in general. (2 Kings vi. 22, 23 ; 
Matt. vi. 11.) It is not easy to see the connection of this 
verse, if we suppose that all the conversation is recorded. 
If all is written that passed between them, then this verse 
seems to be an answer to what was in Manoah's mind, rather 
than a reply to anything he had actually said. The same 
thing is found in the New Testament. Our Lord several 
times replies to what was in the minds of his hearers, rather 
than to any objection stated, or question really put, so far 
as the record goes. 

The angel does not deny that he was a man, nor does he 
deny that he was God. He speaks to Manoah in the char- 
acter that he knew Manoah understood him to be, and re- 
minds him that sacrifices must be offered to Jehovah only. 
Just as when our Lord said in reply to one who addressed 
him as "good Master," "Why callest thou me good? there 
is none good but one, that is God." He did not deny that 
he was God, or affirm that he was not himself good, the 
supreme goodness. He meant to say, So supreme in good- 
ness is God, that comparatively it is not proper to say that 
any one else is good; and besides, if I am really what you 
say I am, then why do you not receive my testimony? In 
8* 



90 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

all such places, the answer is obviously made according to 
the state of the mind of the person addressed, and not in- 
tended to express the truth as known to the speaker. The 
angel replies therefore to Manoah according to the light 
Manoah had. He does not forbid him to sacrifice, nor does 
he tell him he must not sacrifice to him. He does remind 
him, however, that if he offered sacrifice, it must be to God. 
As though he had said to him, Be careful that your sacrifice 
he in sincerity and truth, and in just the way that God has 
appointed; otherwise it will not be acceptable in his sight. 
The angel says, I have no need of this food. And if you 
are going to offer a sacrifice, offer it to Jehovah only. There 
is then no angel worship here. Manoah may have intended 
a mere act of hospitality first, and that then they would 
unite together in worship, and offer up a part of it as a burnt- 
offering. Manoah may have remembered how Abraham of- 
fered to render worship before an angel, and have desired 
to imitate him. And yet he was in doubt, if indeed he had 
any suspicion of the angelic character of his visitor. He 
did not yet know that he was an angel of the Lord. And 
besides, if he had intended to worship an angel, he did not 
do so. The apostle John, and the prophet Daniel also, 
we remember, were prevented from rendering homage to 
angels. 

The objection that Manoah was not a priest, and there- 
fore had no right to offer sacrifice, belongs to that obsolete 
idea, that almighty grace is straitened, and can flow only in 
one narrow channel. He who made Melchizedek a priest 
and king, could make Manoah a priest. The command or 
permission of the angel was sufficient authority, and the 
acceptance of the offering is proof that it was rightly done. 
Christ Jesus himself is a priest not after the Aaronic model. 
He came not of the tribe of Levi. And yet he is exalted 
above all lawgivers, priests, and angels, and set down at the 



THE FAMILY SACRIFICE AND CONFERENCE. 91 

right hand of God, a Prince and a Saviour and a Friest to 
appear in the presence of God for us. 

" What is thy name V In the Bible name is sometimes 
equivalent to nature, essence, and glory. Is Manoah rebuked 
here for unhallowed curiosity ? I do not see wherein he 
was guilty. There is nothing intended to be improper, 
impertinent, or irreverent in his manner or language. Nor 
does it appear that he had been told before, or could have 
learned in any way, that the name of the visitor was not to 
be known, but was " secret," wonderful, ineffable. The 
same Hebrew word here translated secret is rendered icon- 
derful, as has been already stated, in Isaiah ix. 6 ; where it 
is most unquestionably applied to the Messiah, who is 
Christ. The idea expressed here is one of wonder at super- 
human works, or on beholding miraculous interpositions. 
And Manoah and his wife looked on in astonishment, as " the 
angel did wondrously." Bush's paraphrase is to the point : 
" You have scarcely any real occasion to inquire as to my 
name, (nature;) it is obvious from the words, promises, and 
actions already witnessed and yet further to be displayed, 
that I am, and am therefore to be called, Peli, the admirable 
one, the great worker of wonders, the master of miracles. 
The original has the form of a proper name, but the force 
of an appellative." May not the angel have wished to con- 
vey to their mind that he was the angel promised in Ex. 
xxiii. 20, 21 ? Have we here anything more than an 
epitome of the conversation held between the angel and 
Manoah and his wife ? For the true character of this an- 
gel, see the preceding chapter. 

The meat-offering, in the nineteenth verse, is not a happy 
translation. It should be a " flour-offering," such as the 
law prescribed. "And offered it upon a rock," just as 
Gideon did. Detached rocks of the proper size for a table 
or an altar abound throughout the country. Mounds of 



92 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

earth, or stones were used as altars in the earliest times. 
And while Manoah and his wife were offering their sacrifice 
unto the Lord, u the angel did wondrously." Angel is not 
in the original, but it is rightly supplied. There is no 
doubt of the meaning. It was the angel that did won- 
drously. The angel acted according to his name. Being 
wonderful in his nature, it was natural for him to perform 
wonderful things. What the wonders were, we are not told. 
Probably among the things which he did was to manifest 
more of his divine glory, and to cause fire to fall from hea- 
ven, as on Abraham's sacrifice, and Elijah's; or to come 
out of the rock to consume the offering, as the angel did 
who appeared to Gideon. As the smoke of the sacrifice 
went up toward heaven, the angel ascended in the flames, 
as if they were his chariot. And now Manoah's conviction 
is perfect. His mind no doubt had been gradually opening 
to the truth. But now he knew that he was an angel of 
the Lord. 

" And Manoah said unto his wife, We shall surely die, 
because we have seen God." 

1. Here is a domestic conference, in which the wife is 
the best counsellor. A common notion prevailed among 
the ancient Jews that it was death to see the face of God, 
or of an unveiled angel. Manoah's fears were probably ex- 
cited by this prevailing notion. He may indeed have had 
in his mind what the Lord said to Moses, when he entreated 
to see his glory : " Thou canst not see my face ; for there 
shall no man see me and live." Jacob also speaks of his 
wrestling with the angel, and of his having seen God face 
to face, and yet his life was preserved, as something wonder- 
ful. Gen. xxxii. 29, 30. Manoah's apprehensions then 
were not wholly groundless, yet we cannot but admire the 
faith and composure of his wife. 

2. Manoah's alarm was true to fallen humanity. Guilt 



THE FAMILY SACRIFICE AND CONFERENCE. 93 

is always suspicious. Adam and Eve were afraid and hid 
themselves when they heard the voice of the Lord God in 
the garden. So Manoah and his wife, instead of looking 
up to heaven thankfully, fell down upon the eartli half dead 
with fear. It is our infirmity to pervert divine blessings 
into omens of evil. Our eyes are so weak that we are con- 
founded with what should comfort us. We are prone to 
fiud death in the vision that God gives us announcing life. 
"We write bitter things, while God writes unspeakably pre- 
cious promises. The limits of grace and goodness are made 
by ourselves, and not by our heavenly Father. He is in- 
finitely better to us than our own fears. His mercies sur- 
pass our largest hopes. The gospel offer is made to us in 
perfect good faith. Salvation is always of the Lord, and 
damnation is always the sinner's own work. The guilt of 
perdition rests on the sinner's own head. God is a sove- 
reign. Grace is sufficient; and the sinner is free. 

3. The wife's reply is nobly put and ably applied. Her 
reasoning is remarkably correct. Her theology is as sound 
as if she had been educated by the Synod of Dort, or by 
the Westminster Assembly of Divines. It is precisely the 
style of reasoning David adopted when lie was in trouble. 
He often calls upon his soul to hope in God for the future, 
by remembering the divine goodness in times past. Moses 
used the same plea for an extension of divine forbearance 
and patience towards the rebellious Israelites. And Paul 
used the same train of argument to prove the final and com- 
plete triumph of a believer. u God commendeth his love 
toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died 
for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, 
we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if when 
we were sinners, we were reconciled to God by the death of 
his Son ; much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved 
by his life." Rom. v. 8-10. 



94 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

"But his wife said unto him, If the Lord were pleased 
to kill us, he would not have received a burnt-offering and a 
meat-offering at our hands. " This the husband in his panic 
seems to have forgotten. But the wife continues to remind 
him how the Lord had showed them also all things con- 
cerning the birth and education of their son, and had told 
them of the great commission he was to execute as Israel's 
deliverer. Hence she concluded it could not be that they 
were to die. The accomplishment of the promise implies 
that the Lord would not kill them. If the Lord were 
pleased to kill us now, he would not have shown us such 
things as these at this time. 

It is a safe method for us to follow — to plead God's past 
mercies as a ground of hope for the future. His rule is 
grace upon grace. He that has, receives more. It is not 
irreverent to say that he who gave his Son for us, will with 
him give us all things. Is it then reasonable to fear that 
he who has preserved us forty years will fail us for the next 
twenty, if our pilgrimage should continue so long ? He who 
made you, aged friend, and gave his Son to redeem you, 
will not suffer you to perish for the want of meaner things. 
And the feeling of your need of his grace, is a proof that 
he is waiting to be gracious. Even the anxious inquiry 
after salvation proves that the work is already begun. 
Penitential pangs are not natural, but gracious, and argue 
that God has laid his hand upon us. And he is a rock. 
All his works are perfect. He will not leave his work of 
grace half finished. Nor would he have told us such things 
of his love and grace — he would not have manifested such 
unwillingness to destroy the impenitent, as we find in the 
Scriptures, nor have exercised such long-suffering and 
patience as we see in history and in the events of every day 
life, if he did not offer pardon and eternal life to us in per- 
fect good faith on the terms propounded in the gospel. 



TIIE FAMILY SACRIFICE AND CONFERENCE. 95 

And surely the argument from past experience should he 
a satisfactory one. Experience worketh hope, and hope 
niaketh not ashamed. Romans v. 4, 5. ' Is it not an im- 
peachment of the divine sincerity, to fear that if God begins 
a good work, he will not complete it? If he has preserved 
us so long — borne with our waywardness and pardoned our 
transgressions, may we not trust him, for time to come? 
May we not trust in the loving-kindness of him who so 
loved us as to give his Son to redeem us ? It cannot be 
that supreme benevolence tantalizes us — keeps us as the Phil- 
istines did Samson to make sport of us on some great occa- 
sion. If so, why has he ever opened our hearts to our need 
of salvation ? Why do we feel our guilt, and desire to 
escape from the wrath to come ? Surely he would not have 
showed us all these things, nor would he at this time have 
told us such things as these, if the Lord were pleased to 
kill us. Surely he would not have announced to us the 
glad tidings of the gospel — would not have made to us such 
full and free offers of mercy, if he were not pleased to ac- 
cept us. Surely there is honesty in the declaration : " It is 
a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus 
Christ came into the world to save sinners" — even the chief 
of sinners. God's acceptance of the sacrifice of his Son, 
Jesus Christ, is a positive proof that his merits and media- 
tion are available for us. According to the Scriptures, 
Christ died for our sins and rose again for our justification, 
and now appears in the presence of God for us as our High 
Priest and ever-living Intercessor. Paul, in all his epistles, 
but especially in the epistle to the Hebrews, insists upon the 
fact that Christ is now seated at the right hand of the throne 
of God, as conclusive that he is superior to Moses and Aaron 
and all the angels. And the evidence moreover of his ac- 
ceptance at the right hand of God is rendered complete by 
the coming of the Holy Spirit to take of the things which 



96 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

are his, and show them unto us — convincing the world of 
sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. And since God has 
not withheld from* us his only Son, but hath commended his 
love to us, in that he gave his Son to die for us, while we 
were yet his enemies ; how much more will he not give us 
all things on account of the gift of his Son ? Wherefore 
we beseech you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God ; 
for he hath made him to be sin — a sin-offering — for us, 
though he knew no sin, that we might be made the right- 
eousness of God in him. Wherefore Jesus also, that he 
might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered with- 
out the gate. Let us go forth therefore unto him without 
the camp, bearing his renroach. Heb. xiii. 12, 13. 



THE LIFE OF THE HERO BEGUN. 97 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE LIFE OF THE HERO BEGUN. 

"There are tones that will haunt us, though lonely 

Our path be o'er mountain or sea ; 
There are looks that will part from us only 

When memory ceases to be ; 
There are hopes which our burden can lighten, 

Though toilsome and steep be the way; 
And dreams that, like moonlight, can brighten 

"With a light that is clearer than day." 

u And the woman bare a son, and called his name Samson." 
The original is Shimshon, from the root ^hamash, to serve. 
The Hebrew for sun, Shemesh, is probably from the same 
root, and means a little servant, that is, a little sun. But 
why did they call him Shimshon (Samson)? What relation 
had he to the sun? Schmid and others say his parents so 
called him in allusion to the shining of the angel's face, like 
the sun, when he first appeared to his mother. Others, and 
more properly, say, because of the resplendent brightness 
that surrounded the angel as he ascended out of their sight,' 
after the sacrifice. Some assume that maternal fondness 
selected this name as a proper one for an only son. As 
there is but one sun, so she would have but one Samson. 
By whatever process his parents arrived at the name, whether 
by the etymology or derivation hinted at, or by some other, 
they no doubt intended the name of their child to be ex- 
pressive of their gratitude, and a proof of their pious ac- 
knowledgment of the divine favour shown them. 
9 



98 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

Samson's history, like that of Esau and Ishmael, begins 
before his birth, and like that of Moses, Samuel, and Solomon, 
is recorded from his birth. Like Jeremiah, he was set apart 
to a great work from his mother's womb. There seems, 
however, to have been nothing extraordinary in the manner 
of his birth. The child is always father to the man; but in 
some this is more apparent than in others. It was so with 
Samson. " The presages of the womb and the cradle are 
commonly answered in the life; it is not the use of God to 
cast away strange beginnings/' — Hall. 

The record of his childhood and early youth, which is 
also true of many of the world's great men, is scant. He 
grew, "and the Lord blessed him." That is, such divine 
blessings rested on him that it was plainly to be seen he was 
under God's peculiar protection. We cannot help feeling, 
however, some desire to know more of his boyhood, that we 
might see how the child was father to the man. The man 
was most extraordinary; how was the boy? Did his com- 
panions, in the streets of Zorah, nameless and unknown, 
see anything in the long-haired boy that predicted he was 
to be the lion-killer, and the slayer of the lords of the 
Philistines ? 

"And the Lord blessed him" — caused him to grow in 
stature and strength. External providences favoured him, 
and he was under internal divine influences. 

" And the Spirit of the Lord began to move him at times 
in the camp of Dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol." That is, 
while he was yet young — yet at home with his parents, and 
subject unto them, the Spirit of God moved on his heart, 
causing him to feel the humiliation of his countrymen, the 
hatefulness of their subjection to such a people as the Philis- 
tines, and exciting in him strong desires to do something 
for their deliverance. From his tenderest years God began 
to prepare him for the work to which he was called. It was 



THE LIFE OF THE HERO BEGUN. 90 

a great honour to have something to do, and a great mercy 
to be prepared to do it. The divine influence on him, I ap- 
prehend, was both gracious and miraculous. True, the 
power to work miracles, and the gift of prophecy, were not 
always and necessarily connected with an experience of grace. 
They ought, indeed, always to have been found united; but 
historically we know they were not. Nor are eminent gifts 
and attainments now always found in connection with per- 
sonal piety. When the Spirit of the Lord moved the child 
Samson, I suppose we are to understand that he was regen- 
erated, and that such ideas were put into his youthful mind, 
and such strength imparted to his growing frame, as God 
saw would best lit him for his future work. And it is just 
so still. It is as true now as it ever was, that God renews 
the heart by his Spirit, and by his providence prepares us for 
the work to which he calls us in this world. The Holy Spirit 
that moved the patriarchs, and prophets, and judges, in days 
of old, is not another Holy Spirit, but the same, the very 
same, that came down on the day of Pentecost, and that 
opened the heart of Lydia at Philippi, and dwelt in Paul 
and in John the divine. Regeneration is always an act of 
omnipotence. True holiness is never produced in us but by 
the Spirit of God. The only difference between the moving 
of the Spirit of God upon the heart of a child now and 
among us, and upon Samson, lies in the bearing that it had 
in his case upon his mission as a judge and an avenger of 
his people. The Holy Spirit was bestowed in an extraordi- 
nary measure in Old Testament times, upon those persons 
whom the Lord had chosen to perform great deeds for the 
deliverance of his people. 

The original for " began to move him at times," is pecu- 
liar. According to Diodati, it means, to inspire magnani- 
mous thoughts into him, and give him a miraculous strength 
of body and courage, and to incite him to do great and 



100 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

more than human acts. The radical word means an anvil, 
and the metaphor seems to be drawn from the repeated and 
somewhat violent shocks of the smith's hammer. Thus did 
the Spirit of the Lord stir up Samson. His call was clear, 
repeated, and urgent. 

The twenty-fifth verse seems to say that a camp was 
formed between Zorah and Eshtaol, to give some check to 
the Philistines; and when the Hebrews went out for drill, 
or to make a demonstration against the enemy, young Sam- 
son went out with them, and by various manifestations of 
strength and courage, gave intimations of what he would do 
when he should become of age. This was the bright sunny 
morning of our hero judge. Alas ! that it was so short. He 
grew, and the Spirit of the Lord began to move him, in- 
spiring him with the purpose and preparing him for the de- 
liverance of his people. The sequel discloses, however, the 
painful fact that Samson did not meet the possibilities of 
his destiny. His character was not equal to his gifts. His 
history is a riddle, the unravelling of which is a warning of 
great significance to young men, especially to such as have 
had pious parents, and begun life with high religious 
hopes. His name is a miracle and a by-word — a glory and 
a shame — proclaiming divine sovereignty and mercy, and at 
the same time the awful severity of divine goodness. 

As Samson's manhood is not such as his youth promised, 
let no child of pious parents push away this history, and say, 
I shall never disappoint my parents. Do we not read of 
one who, with quite as much indignation as it is prudent 
for any young man to express, said, in reference to a wicked 
thing, "Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?" 
and yet he did that very thing. Your baptismal covenant, 
young man, can hardly bind you more strictly than Samson's 
circumcision and Nazaritish vows bound him. Nor have 
you any right to conclude that the gracious movements of 



THE LIFE OF THE HERO BEGUN. 101 

God's Spirit will be more effectual and persistent in you 
than they were in him. It is true, you may have had 
advantages which he had not — and yet it is equally true that 
many young people, brought up as piously as yourselves, 
have forgotten their Bibles, and forsaken the house of God, 
and made shipwreck of the faith and hope of their parents. 

It is painfully true that some of the children of great pro- 
mise, and high hopes, have turned out very badly. Their 
sun has gone down into the night of sorrow and death, while 
yet it was high noon; nor have they fallen alone. They 
have crushed the hearts of their parents, and brought their 
gray hairs with sorrow to the grave. Let the biography 
of this extraordinary man, then, be a warning to all the 
young, of the terrific whirlpools, and sunken rocks, on which 
so many adventurers have made shipwreck for time and 
eternity. 

The principles taught in the foregoing remarks, and 
suggested by the early training of our hero, are of universal 
importance; but especially so in a new country, and in the 
infancy of a State. A great teaching philosopher of anti- 
quity* asserts, and correctly, too, that he who is about to 
be a good man in anything whatever, ought immediately, 
from childhood, to practise, when engaged in playful and 
serious pursuits, the very things suited to the particular ob- 
ject he has in view. Plato's idea is, that he who is about 
to make himself a good farmer, should have playthings that 
teach him about the tilling of the ground. And he that is 
to be a house-builder, should play at building children's 
houses. And his parents or guardian should provide him 
with the implements, as toys, that should teach him famil- 
iarity with the future employment of the tools belonging to 
the art he is to pursue. The teacher of children should en- 

* Plato, the Laws, book I. 



102 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

deavour to make the plays and pleasures of the child intro- 
ductory to his future life. If a boy is to be a soldier, he 
should be taught to walk, ride, endure fatigue, and the like 
things in his sports. The child should be taught what he 
is to do when he is a man. This principle is generally ac- 
knowledged, and yet among nominal christians nothing is 
more apparent than the neglect of children at home. It is 
not merely the neglect of family religion that I deplore, but 
of all proper family nurture and admonition. I am thorough- 
ly persuaded that a very large proportion of the lawlessness, 
iniquity, and corruption of the times may be traced to the 
want of subordination and instruction in our families. The 
hope of the state and of the church is of necessity centered 
in the young. It is a most imperative duty, then, to bring 
them up in the way they should go. In wisdom the Creator 
has arranged that the family should be the first and greatest 
of all educational agencies. The home, and then the school 
room, and the house of worship, are instrumentalities that 
make us what we are. The home is first and most impor- 
tant; there is the root that feeds the life; there the precious 
metal is first moulded into shape which may afterwards be 
rasped and polished, but not recast. There lines may be 
traced on a yielding and pliable nature, that become as en- 
during as if sculptured on stone. The lessons of our earliest 
home are wrought into the structure of the mind, and 
give to it shape and colouring more or less indestructible. 
The mind of the little one, in the mother's arms, is like a 
daguerreotype plate, that receives whatever image is first 
cast upon it. No subsequent impressions can ever be so 
distinct. And so susceptible is the tender mind, that it is 
ever taking impressions. In the granite rocks we find pre- 
served from ages so long past that we cannot name their 
date, impressions of the tiniest leaves of the forest. So it is 
often the case that words uttered carelessly sink into the 



THE LIFE OF THE HERO BEGUN. 103 

soul, and may be traced upon its every fibre for ever after- 
wards, as if written with a pen of iron, and the point of a 
diamond. A breath covers the frosted window with an icy 
film, and a word, or a cruel suspicion, or a wicked gesture 
or picture, may for ever crust the mirror of a young heart. 
But not only is the young heart peculiarly susceptible of 
impressions, but it is, alas! prone to evil rather than good. 
This is true of all men until they are taught of God. But 
in the young there is a peculiar aptitude to receive good 
impressions. Evil habits are not then formed; the passions 
are not then glowing like a furnace; evil associations have 
not then pre-occupied the affections. This is the time to 
open the heart to truth, and turn it to God. These oppor- 
tunities are beyond all price. Hear the lesson, parents and 
Sabbath-school teachers. 

All history, all analogy, and all experience prove that in- 
stitutions alone cannot keep a people free. It is in the in- 
telligence, social morality, and religious spirit of the people 
that lies the hope of our continuing to have a free and salu- 
tary form of government. It is as plain and true as that 
there is a sun in the heavens, pouring his light upon our 
fields and mountains, and ripening our fruits and harvests, 
that our rapid growth and great prosperity are to be ascribed 
to moral causes— our religiousness of character, and our 
free and wisely constructed institutions. Whenever we 
lose our social ethics and religious spirit, we shall find the 
days of the Republic numbered, and the reign of corruption, 
anarchy, and tyranny commenced. 

Family training is a theme that cannot be exhausted. 
Even when nothing new is elicited in urging its impor- 
tance, it is well to bring old truths again and again before 
the public. As in building the pyramids, stone was laid 
upon stone, and course upon course, until the huge pile 
arose, and then it was finished from the top downwards; so 



104 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

at home and in earliest years the work of education is be- 
gun. And long afterwards, by line upon line, and precept 
upon precept, here a little and there a little, the mind is 
developed, and the moral character formed. The impor- 
tance of proper training at home, and in earliest years, is 
greatly enhanced among us by the fact that our country is 
in a great measure governed by young men, and that our 
young men leave home early; and yet almost all the educa- 
tion many of them receive is obtained at home and from 
the primary school. And when they leave home they are 
exposed to many dangers : they are not only from home, 
but many of them are without proper female society ; they 
are in the season of the passions ; they are ambitious of 
fame and wealth. It is vastly important, therefore, that 
they be well established in right moral principles. How 
else can we expect them to resist the fascinations of vice, 
or escape the corruption of a weakened moral sense, from 
the infidelity that prevails around them ? Much has been 
done by our schools, lyceums, lecturings, libraries, and 
pulpit efforts, for the young, but we are not satisfied. The 
results attained are not commensurate with our hopes, nor 
with the urgencies of the case. Crime is still on the in- 
crease. The present course of a very large number of our 
youth — I dare not say how large a proportion — is not hope- 
ful. The future of American youth, physically, mentally, 
and socially, is not hopeful. The prospect is one of dimin- 
ished stature and strength. The hastening to be rich, the 
excess, and extravagance, and dissipation of the present 
generation are likely to entail feebleness and luxury on that 
which is to come; nor is this true only of those who have 
had vicious parents. The ranks of such are every day in- 
creasing from the thresholds of piety. Are there not now 
among the profane many that were brought up in the homes 
of industry and prayer ? We do not read aright if violence 



THE LIFE OF THE HERO BEGUN. 105 

and forgery, intemperance and lewdness, profane and obscene 
language, robberies, murders, divorces, and suicides, have 
not become so common as hardly to awaken our surprise. 
The society of our day is diseased — it is corrupt — it is rot- 
ten — it is " a shame and a lie." A fearful malady is at 
work, and sad consequences are to be apprehended. Think- 
ing men, earnest minded, large hearted men are sad, and 
some are even despairing. How is it that so much parental 
love and care, anxiety and toil, produce no more fruits ? 
Iu the next generation, who are to be our successful mer- 
chants, our legislators, statesmen, and learned and great 
men ? If the morning of life is neglected, if the young 
are physically debilitated, and morally depraved, and their 
minds dark and ignorant, how can we avoid a rapid move- 
ment on the downward road ? 

To have any fears on such a subject is painful to a well 
disposed mind. It fills us with horror to think of the 
calamities that are, sooner or later, measured out to corrupt 
communities by a retributive Providence. As parents and 
patriots, and much more as christians, we should consider 
the dangerous tendencies of excessive devotion to money- 
making and sensual delights. If parents are devoted to an 
increase of stocks and dividends, so as to neglect the mind 
and social affections — if their ambition is to occupy a 
palatial residence, keep a superb equipage, and deck their 
daughters in the stiffest crinolines, richest furs, and most 
costly silks, and have their sons drive the fastest horses, 
and drink the most costly wines — then what will their 
grandchildren be, if they have any ? Will not the spirit 
of the fathers become stronger, and more sordid, and more 
injurious as it descends to the children ? What, then, can 
be done ? 

1. A more healthy, vigorous kind of literature can be 
put into the hands of the young. In popularizing science, 



106 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

our school systems are almost emasculated. Our children 
are fed on pap, when they should have honest hard bread 
and sound meat. In making a royal road to scholarship 
easy, we have denied them the gymnastics of the mind, and 
too many of them have stumbled over the ass's bridge, or 
are standing still upon it. The Peter Parley literature of 
our schools should be exiled to the islands of the southern 
Pacific. 

2. Our children should be taught, everywhere and always, 
that knowledge, mental power, discipline of thought, and 
not a mere parrot recital at an examination, is the thing to 
be gained by going to school. Dr. Johnson said that it was 
a great thing gained when a child knew there was such a 
place as Kamschatka. All knowledge tends to profit. 

3. Family government and training must be resumed. 
One of the sources of the evils of the times is in the relaxed 
state of family government. As the common schools and 
Sabbath-schools have prevailed, and have been made to take 
the place of family teachings, so the influence of parents 
has diminished. Now if the common schools and Sabbath- 
schools are made substitutes for family government, then it 
were a misfortune that they have ever been established. It 
is not their vocation to take the child altogether from paren- 
tal training. Their true place is auxiliary to the parent. 
They are to help the parent, but not to supersede him, or 
in the smallest degree weaken his influence. 

4. In the family training of children there must be a 
more earnest, simple inculcation of moral precepts. In be- 
coming enlightened and liberal, we must distinguish between 
a proper regard for religious truth and absolute indifference. 
The religious principles of the families of a nation give 
character to its morals and mental activities. All the bless- 
ings of civilized life may be traced to our private dwellings 
— to our homes and to our mothers. The corner stones of 



THE LIFE OF THE HERO EECIUN. 107 

our churches and of the state arc our hearthstones, guarded 
by lawfully wedded forms of conjugal love. " Let our tern, 
pies," says one, "crumble, and our academies decay; let 
every public edifice, our halls of justice, and our capitals 
of state, be levelled with the dust, but spare our homes. 
Let no socialist invade them with his wild plans of com- 
munity. Man did not invent, and he cannot improve or 
abrogate them. A private shelter to cover in two hearts 
dearer to each other than all in the world; high walls, to 
exclude the profane eyes of human beings ; seclusion 
enough for children to feel that mother is a holy and a 
peculiar name — this is home; and here is the birth place 
of every virtuous impulse, and every sacred thought. Here 
the church and the state must come for their origin and 
their support. Oh, spare our homes !" 

Yes, our homes must be cherished as the most sacred 
spots we have on earth. Here we may teach our children 
how to regain ten thousand little Edens, by inspiring them 
with a love for the beauties of nature and of art, and with 
love to mankind and their blessed Creator. I should have 
been an atheist, said John Randolph, but for the recollec- 
tion that my mother used to take my little hands in hers, 
and cause me to say, on her knees, " Our Father which art 
in heaven." But to make home the fountain of such in- 
fluences, it must be truly the seat of the affections. Some 
parents seem to move among their tender olive plants with 
so much haughty dignity, and cold precision, that they re- 
mind me of the lofty and craggy peaks of the icebergs that 
are sometimes found floating among the island gardens of 
the tropics. Their presence is always known by the chilli- 
ness of the air. I am persuaded it were better to put out 
our children's eyes than to crush their affections in the 
nursery. It were better that a whole family were carried 
off by the plague, than that it should live without a heart. 



108 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

Rather let the young heart burst out in glee, and song, and 
sympathy. Teach the little one to hate only u sin, dirt, and the 
devil," and to love everything beautiful and good. Let the 
warm emotions of the little heir to immortality gush out for 
the cow that gives him milk, and for the dog that guards his 
father's door, and allows his tiny fingers to pinch his ears. 
Teach your children to hate vice, and to love the robin and 
the rose, their country and their God, and then you may 
commit the government to their shoulders. And let the 
young prize the principles of their pious parents, and heed 
their solemn warnings against the fascinations of vice. 

" — Prize them, brother, 'twill not last for ever, 
And once escaped, it will return — no ! never ! 
It is the morning : work while lasts its light ; 
Ye cannot toil so cheerily at night. 
It is the time of sowing ; let the seed 
Produce the harvest that your soul will need. 
And 'tis the planting time ; be sure the root 
Be such as bears the most delicious fruit." 



samson's first love and the lion-fight. 109 



CHAPTER VIII. 

samson's first love and the lion-fight. 

"Yet truth to say, I oft have heard men wonder 
Why thou shouldst wed Philistian women rather 
Than of thine own tribe, fairer, or as fair, 
At least of thy own nation, and as noble." 

Samson Agonistes. 

In the last chapter we had a glance at the early piety of 
the great Israelite. The spirit of God was upon him in the 
camp of his countrymen, near his native city. His religion, 
however, does not seem to have flourished long. His journeys 
to Timnath, though marked with deeds of miraculous strength, 
are the beginnings of his trouble. 

The fourteenth chapter tells us how he went down to 
Timnath, and fell in love with a Philistine damsel. Tim- 
nath was near the sea side, hence the expression went down. 
Though this city belonged to his own tribe, it was at this 
time in the hands of the Philistines. It had once belonged 
to Judah, but had been transferred to Dan. It was some 
fifteen miles north-east of Eshtaol, and twenty west from 
Jerusalem. Its possession now by the Philistines was a re- 
proach to the Israelites. Either they had not driven them 
out originally, as they should have done in the time of 
the conquest under Joshua and Caleb, or the Philistines 
had returned and re-occupied it. However this may have 
been, there was at this time free intercourse between the 
Philistines and the Hebrews. The population was probably 
10 



110 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

mixed, but the Hebrews were under tribute to the Philis- 
tines. 

In considering Samson's choice of a wife, we are conscious 
of a feeling of painful disappointment. We had a right to 
expect Manoah's son would have made a better selection. 
In choosing a Philistine, we begin to see his lower nature 
acting the tyrant. But it were well if domestic history in 
modern times did not present many instances of similar 
stubborness. In such matters, the fancy of young people is 
often the supreme law. Louis XIV. was not more headstrong 
and dogmatic when he said, that his heavy guns were the 
last reason of kings, than is the mere fancy of the eye in 
youth. Samson's falling in love, was in the ordinary way : 
"And he saw a woman of Timnath," and she pleased him 
well. Hebrew, She was just right in his eyes. Some in- 
terpreters think the original implies something more than 
she was agreeable to his fancy. Possibly it may mean, that 
he was moved by the Lord to this alliance, seeing that it 
would furnish a proper occasion for him to begin his deliver- 
ances. The Hebrew yashar may mean not only that she 
was beautiful, fascinating in his eyes, but also that she was 
fit, right, appropriate in regard to the great work which he 
had to accomplish. If this sense be adopted here, then 
Samson was prophet enough to understand the popular doc- 
trine of availability. He had regard to an ulterior and 
higher purpose than gratifying his taste. This does not 
necessarily imply, however, that he did not love this woman. 
Prudence and affection may co-exist. Nor do I see anything 
wrong in his making his love for this woman subservient to 
the great patriotic mission for which Providence had raised 
him up. But surely it was a strange beginning. The pro- 
mised deliverer of Israel takes a wife from their hereditary 
enemies. But was not this a fair prologue to the rest of his 
life ? He was a man of paradoxes. 



samson's first love and the lion-fight. Ill 

We do not wonder that his pious parents were astonished 
at his wish to take a Philistine woman to wife. They were 
national enemies. And the angel had said he should deliver 
Israel. They would therefore naturally inquire, How is this ? 
Is our deliverance to begin with an alliance? We are not 
to touch anything unclean; our child is a Nazarite; and yet 
he wishes to marry a heathen ! This is the beginning of the 
riddle. "Is there never a woman among thy brethren V 
is the natural inquiry of such a father and mother. As he 
was so especially consecrated to God, it must have seemed 
peculiarly improper for him to make such an alliance. But 
Samson was not in a reasoning mood. His love for the 
Philistine maid was as ardent as his strength was great. 
The brave love heroically. As a good son, he consults his 
parents, and asks their approbation ; but, then as is too often 
the case, he pressed his own desires too obstinately. When 
his parents remonstrated against such an alliance, he replied 
to his father, saying, "Get her for me, for she pleaseth me 
well." Still, let us not forget that he did consult his parents. 
This showed his regard for them and for the law of God. 
Before he paid his addresses to the young woman, or said 
anything to her parents, he laid the affair before his own 
parents. As yet his marrying was not a foregone conclusion. 
Thus far he is a noble example for all young persons. 
Doubtless there would be many more happy marriages, if 
pious parents were more reverentially consulted, and if such 
unions were more generally formed with due regard to the 
divine will. Obedience to God in marrying, as well as in 
other things, is the way of happiness. 

In seeking a Philistine wife, even in the most favourable 
view we can take of the affair, Samson was treading on doubt- 
ful and dangerous ground. Their law expressly forbade the 
Israelites to marry among those nations that were cursed 
and devoted to destruction. It does not appear, however, 



112 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

that the Philistines were numbered among the doomed 
Canaanites. They were of Egyptian origin. The spirit of 
the Hebrew law, however, was plainly against such alliances, 
for the Philistines were idolators and foreigners. It is true 
the law that forbade an Israelite to marry a heathen, was a 
ceremonial law, or a police law — one that related to their 
national policy. It was not one of the laws of the decalogue. 
It was not a moral law. It might therefore be changed, or 
suspended. 

In what sense was it "of the Lord" that he sought the Tim- 
nite damsel for a wife as an occasion against the Philistines? 
It is seldom the sacred writers give reasons for what they 
record, but the fourth verse seems to be parenthetical, and 
designed to explain why Samson's parents declined con- 
senting to this marriage. It is clearly implied that if they 
had known that this was God's will, they would at once 
have acquiesced. They did agree to go with him to Timnath, 
as we find from the following verse, to see more about the 
matter, and finally gave their consent. Some think they 
went with Samson because he told them plainly his motives, 
or that in some way, they understood the thing was of the 
Lord. But if the divine prohibition against such an al- 
liance was repealed for the time, making for special reasons 
his case an exception, how is it that the historian does not 
inform us of this fact? Why does not Samson tell his pa- 
rents that the law is repealed in this case? There is not 
even a hint of any such thing. The statement that this al- 
liance was of the Lord does not excuse Samson from all re- 
sponsibility. The match was of his own seeking. He acted 
as a free agent in going down to Timnath. He was not 
carried there by angels, nor did God miraculously excite his 
love towards the Philistine dame. But God, seeing Samson's 
choice, determined to bring good out of it — he determined 
that his attachment to a Philistine woman should be over- 



samson's first love and the lion-fight. 113 

ruled, so as to be the occasion of his beginning to deliver 
Israel. 

That it was of the Lord, that he sought an occasion 
against the Philistines, does not make God the author of it. 
Samson was permitted to exercise his own free will, and to 
follow his fancy in choosing a wife, and God, in the exercise 
of free agency and sovereignty, made his choice subservient 
to the fulfilment of the promise made to his mother, that 
he should begin to deliver Israel from the hands of the 
Philistines. The Philistines were a people already tried 
and under sentence of judgment in the court of heaven. 
Against is here used in the sense of from, concerning them. 
The fault of a conflict was to come from them, and then 
they were to be punished for the wrongs they had done to 
Israel. He, Samson, and not the Lord, is the proper sub- 
ject of the verb. And even if we are not able to explain 
why the Lord adopted this peculiar way of bringing down 
his judgments on the Philistines, the sacred narrative is 
none the less perfect. It is a simple record of events, or 
of God's dealings with his people, and not an explanation 
of motives or a detail of reasons for the divine proceedings. 
Some suggest that this method was adopted to concentrate 
on the person of Samson himself the whole wrath and force 
of the Philistines, because it was God's plan to make him 
the deliverer of the Hebrews by his own personal exploits, 
rather than by leading their hosts, as the other judges had 
done. He was not the chief of their armies, but himself 
the army, more fully than ever the grand monarch was the 
state. It was a part of this plan therefore to bring about 
a private quarrel between Samson and their enemies, and 
this was done naturally enough, and as many other quarrels 
have been, about a woman. Helen is not alone in her glory. 
Other cities than Troy have been exceedingly troubled on 
account of their fair ones. Whether Samson prophetically 
10* 



114 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

foresaw what was to happen is not stated. Most probably 
he did not know beforehand in what way the result was to 
be effected. But having full confidence in the providence 
of God, and knowing that it was his will to execute judg- 
ments upon the enemies of his countrymen, and that he 
was raised up to be the agent of inflicting them, he was no 
doubt under a strong impression that such results would 
come of his enterprise, but without any definite idea of the 
details. God knows the end from the beginning. The 
divine mind saw, therefore, clearly how the baseness and 
perfidy of Samson's wife and professed friends would prove 
an occasion of bitter hatred and revenge — and how the 
Philistines would thereby lay themselves liable to punish- 
ment — and that there was no injustice in their punishment. 
But the omniscience of the supreme Being was not a mov- 
ing cause to the actors. They acted of their own free will 
as in the case of our Lord's crucifixion. And is there any 
reason why the Almighty may not use his omniscience in 
governing the world, and in making the wicked work out 
their own punishment ? Some restrict the moving or ex- 
citing from the Lord to his seeking a righteous cause of 
quarrel, and deny that Samson's marriage with the Timnite 
was in any sense instigated by the Lord. It was of the 
Lord that Samson should begin his work of delivering the 
Israelites from the tyranny of their oppressors, and that he 
should have a just ground for inflicting judgments upon 
them ; but it was not of the Lord that he should violate the 
law in marrying a heathen. In this view of his case, we 
find him moved by the Lord to find a quarrel with the 
Philistines, and constitutionally framed to be a great war- 
rior and an avenger of Hebrew wrongs, and at the same 
time, we see him moved by his own constitutional and most 
characteristic propensity to find the cause or occasion of a 
quarrel with the Philistines by falling in love with one of 



samson's first love and the lion-fight. 115 

their maidens and seeking her in marriage. But great care 
is necessary to distinguish between what the Lord moved 
him to do, and what his own propensity moved him to do. 
Think you, that he prayed to God to direct him as to the 
precise method of his procedure against the Philistines, or 
being persuaded that it was the divine will for him to seek 
a quarrel with them, did he trust to his own judgment as 
to the means; and in the meantime concludes that he will 
find the occasion of the quarrel in gratifying his passion for 
a Philistine maid ? It is certainly true that men sometimes 
so deceive themselves, that they pray for guidance from the 
Lord, while at the same time, their course is fixed in 
their own hearts. What they will do is a foregone conclusion. 
They pray for the divine will to be done, and do their own 
will. They pray for light to follow Providence, and rise 
from their knees and go straightway out to lead Providence. 
They bow their knees before God, but not their souls. And 
regarding iniquity in their hearts, their prayers are not 
heard. Whatever it does or does not mean, the fourth verse 
cannot teach that God prompted Samson to transgress. 
God cannot tempt any man to evil. 

" For at that time the Philistines had dominion over 
Israel." What is the force here of the illative for? In 
some sense it certainly expresses the idea that Samson was 
moved to find a pretext for avenging his people on their 
enemies. Schmid, and some others, understand it thus : 
the Philistines, by the art of war, were the conquerors; 
they had dominion over the Israelites, and it was not right 
for them to rebel against existing power, unless some fresh 
overt act of oppression was committed. The idea, then, is, 
that though suffering under a tyranny, yet it was necessary 
for them to have a just cause for endeavouring to shake off 
the yoke ; and that it would have been unlawful for them 
to rise against their conquerors without such a cause. Our 



116 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

fathers of the Revolution of 1776, sought diligently to 
justify their Declaration of Independence and separation 
from the mother country, by stating to the whole world 
their reasons. They recited the acts of the British Parlia- 
ment that were unlawful, unjust, and oppressive. They 
had sought repeatedly, and in various ways, for redress, but 
in vain. They were spurned from the throne, and their 
only hope was in revolution. The same is true of the 
revolution of 1688. It is unquestionably true that the 
Bible is very strong against insubordination and rebellion. 
But I have yet to see the proof that it enjoins, absolutely 
and unconditionally, the duty of passive obedience. The 
danger of our times, however, is all in the contrary direc- 
tion. In Samson's case there is at least the appearance of 
singular prudence and moderation; " that although he had 
ample grounds in the divine commission implied in the very 
fact of his being raised up and set apart as a national de- 
liverer, yet, to avoid offence, he will not undertake the 
work, till a just and legitimate cause of war occurs." 

His parents at first objected to the match, but afterwards 
went down with him to Timnath, either hoping that some- 
thing would occur on the way, or when they should arrive, 
by which they could divert him from his purpose; or they 
went in his behalf to arrange for the wedding. Substan- 
tially this is the manner of conducting such affairs still in 
the East. Sometimes the proposal is made, however, in a 
different style. A young fellow says to a father, Such 
another father will give so much with his daughter; how 
much will you give if I marry yours? Ordinarily all such 
negotiations are carried on by the parents of the young peo- 
ple. The leading idea is of bargain and sale. The dower 
or the purchase money has more influence than the affection 
of the parties, or their fitness to make each other happy. 

As his father and mother were on their way down to 



samson's first love and the lion-fight. 117 

Tininath, Samson goes aside into the vineyards belonging 
to the town, probably, says Henry, to gather grapes ; but 
another, more poetically inclined, says, Samson wished "to 
gain the pleasure of a lonely thought. " But he had neither 
the pleasure of a lonely thought, nor of eating grapes, for 
"a young lion came and roared against him." 

I believe this is the first, but certainly not the last time, 
allusion is made in the Bible to lions. In the subsequent 
books of the Bible they are frequently mentioned as being 
found in Palestine and adjacent countries. In the life of 
David, and in the history of the exploits of his mighty 
men, they are several times mentioned. On a snowy day 
one of his worthies killed two lions in a pit. The dis- 
obedient prophet was killed by a lion ; and the overflowings 
of the Jordan drove lions from their hiding places in the 
thickets on its banks. Historically the proof is strong that 
lions were numerous in ancient times in Asia Minor. They 
live to be old, and multiply rapidly. It is true, however, 
that but few, if any, are to be found there at the present 
time. The monks of Mount Sinai told me in 1851, that 
lions still prowled through the sandy plains, and over the 
mountains of the peninsula. But even if not a single lion 
could now be found in western Asia, the text may be true ; 
for numerous instances can be cited of the disappearing of 
beasts and plants from countries where they were once numer- 
ous. The hippopotamus was once on the lower Nile, but is not 
there now. The lotus is believed to have been a native of 
India, but flourished a long time on the Nile, and then dis- 
appeared. The slabs, cylinders, walls, columns, and tombs of 
the ruins of Chaldea, Assyria, and Egypt prove that lions were 
well known in ancient times. Hunting lions and killing 
lions is often represented. They are found still on 
the banks of the Tigris, the Euphrates, and in the Syrian 
deserts. 



118 



THE GIANT JUDGE. 



There are at least seven Hebrew terms signifying a lion, 
expressive of the different ages of that animal. Kephir in 
the text, however, signifies a young lion in full strength, and 
therefore a dangerous adversary. Samson seems not to have 
been aware of his presence, till the very moment when with 
open mouth he came fiercely at him ready to devour him. 
As the lion never roars in the presence of an enemy, except 
when ready to spring upon him, it is obvious his danger 
was imminent. The lion roared against him, that is, was 
about to seize him and tear him to pieces. Samson was 
now twenty-two years old, but it was not in his own strength 
that he prevailed over the lion : " The spirit of the Lord 
came mightily upon him, and he rent him as he would have 
rent a kid." 




That is, supernatural influence excited his body and his 
mind to an extraordinary degree of energy. As the dan- 
ger was immediate and extreme, so the divine help was in- 
stantaneous. This adventure was singularly prophetic. It 
was well calculated to inspire him with courage, and to awaken 
faith in himself and in God. As the king of beasts was as 



samson's first love and the lion-fight. 119 

weak as a kid in the sinewy arms of the weaponless hero, 
and his body soon lay breathless ou the ground, so could he 
with divine assistance overcome the oppressors of his peo- 
ple. It is remarkable that both Samson and David had a 
lion encounter, as a kind of preparation for their conflict 
with the Philistines. 

" But he told not his father or his mother what he had 
done/' He deemed it best to keep to himself for the pre- 
sent this evidence of God's favour. Perhaps he thought if 
he told his parents, the Philistines might hear of his great 
strength, and be more on their guard against him. He 
judged it best not to arouse their jealousy at present. His 
modesty and self-control are commendable. In rejoining 
his parents with as much humility and composure as if he 
had not performed a great feat, we see the true hero. 
He was as modest as he was brave. Great talkers, noisy 
boasters, are seldom good for anything else. Such was 
Goliah of Gath, but the victory was with the modest son of 
Jesse. 

Hall suggests that if Samson's parents had been behind 
the hedge witnessing the fight with the lion, they would not 
have troubled themselves any more about his marriage. 
They would have concluded his life was lost, for what could 
an unarmed man do with a lion in his fury? And sure 
enough, if the tawny adversary had found nothing but a 
man's strength in his antagonist, it had been an easy victory. 
" Bat the spirit of the Lord came upon Samson." And now 
"if his bones had been brass and his skin plates of iron/' it 
would have been the same thing. He would have rent him 
as if he had been a kid. The Creator who made the lions 
stand in awe of Adam, Noah, and Daniel, could easily subdue 
this one before the giant Hebrew. Let us remember that 
the most dangerous lion in the way of duty is not the one 
that springs upon us from the wayside, but the one that lives 



120 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

within us. The strongest lion we have to fight, is the old 
Adam within. 

" Deny thyself, and take thy cross, 
Is the Redeemer's great command : 
Nature must count her gold but dross, 
If she would gain this heavenly land. 

The fearful soul that tires and faints, 
And walks the ways of God no more, 

Is but esteemed almost a saint, 
And makes his own destruction sure." 



SWEETNESS OUT OF THE STRONG. 121 



CHAPTER IX. 

SWEETNESS OUT OF THE STRONG 
"But one sad losel soils a name for aye." — Childe Harold. 

The fourteenth chapter of Judges opens with an engage- 
ment of marriage. We are now going to the wedding, but 
on our way we have meat out of the eater and sweetness out 
of the strong. We are now at the beginning of the end. 
11 After a time/' Samson returns to take the woman of Tim- 
nath to wife. The Hebrew here signifies "after some days/' 
probably after a year. For it was the custom of those days 
in the East, as it is still, for ten or twelve months to elapse 
between the betrothment and the marriage. During this 
time the espoused wife remained with her parents preparing 
her dresses and ornaments for the wedding. Thus Samson 
went down with his parents, and the engagement was made, 
and now he returns to be married. And on his way, as he 
passes the vineyards where he had killed the lion, he turns 
aside to see the carcass, and behold it was full of bees and 
honey. He kept thinking of past providences, although he 
was on his way to his wedding. The motives that prompted 
him to turn aside to see the lion's carcass are not stated. 
But in pondering his ways as he was going to Timnath, it 
was natural that the sight of the vineyards, where God had 
delivered him out of the power of the lion, should have ex- 
cited his gratitude. It was well that a sense of God's good- 
11 



122 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

ness revived within him. The dangers we have escaped 
should not be forgotten. When we are bereaved, we should 
be careful not to lose the benefits designed by forgetting the 
hand that afflicts; and when God preserves our friends or 
raises us up from threatened death, surely thankfulness 
should fill our hearts. All God's mercies — all his provi- 
dences to us should be monuments of our gratitude. 

1. Some raise a difficulty here by saying that the honey 
of the ancients was the expressed juice of dates. This may 
be true of some of their honey, but surely it is not denied 
that honeybees are as old as Moses. "And he took thereof 
in his hands/' implies according to the original, that he 
wrested the honey from the bees — that he had to fight with 
them to get it. And he gave of the honey-comb to his pa- 
rents; but said nothing to them as to where and how he had 
obtained it. 

2. Some confusion is found in ancient authors about the 
liking or disliking of bees for dead bodies. A general opinion 
once prevailed among the heathen that honey bees were 
generated in carcasses. Virgil is quoted for such an opinion. 
"But here," says he, "they behold a sudden prodigy, and 
wondrous to relate, bees, through all the belly, hum amid the 
putrid bowels of the cattle, pour forth with the fermenting 
juices from the burst sides, and in immense clouds roll along; 
then swarm together on the top of a tree, and hang down in 
a cluster from the bending boughs." Varro is quoted for a 
directly contrary opinion. He says, "The bee never sits 
down in an unclean place, or upon anything that emits an 
unpleasant smell. They are never seen like flies, feeding 
on blood or flesh; while wasps and hornets all delight in 
such food, the bee never touches a dead body. So much do 
they dislike an impure smell, that when one of them dies, 
the survivors immediately carry out the carcass from the 
hive, that they may not be annoyed by the effluvia." And 



SWEETNESS OUT OF THE STRONG. 123 

Aristotle says: "The bee will not alight upon a dead carcass, 
nor taste the flesh/' 

It is not our business to harmonize Aristotle, Varro, 
and Virgil, nor to settle the dispute among their learned 
scholiasts. It may be that these contradictory opinions 
have arisen from vague traditions concerning Samson's bees. 
It is a well known historic fact that directly contradictory 
traditions sometimes flow from one and the same fountain. 

But an examination of the text does not decide in favour 
of either of these theories. It does not say the bees were 
generated or developed in the lion's carcass. There was "a 
swarm of bees and honey in the carcass of the lion/' but it 
is not said the bees were hatched there. Nor is it said 
that the lion had just been killed, or that the flesh was 
putrid. The contrary is made to appear from the state- 
ment, that it was " after a time, he returned." It must 
have been, as we have shown, about a year after the lion was 
killed, that the bees were found in its skeleton frame. This 
was quite time enough, for the birds and beasts of prey to 
have eaten the flesh off from the bones, and for the hot sun 
and parching winds of Asia to have completely dried them. 
Ants and vultures also are very numerous in Asia, and may 
have helped to prepare the carcass for the bees. The 
traveller over the plains on the west side of our continent 
has often seen lying on the road side the bony frame of an 
ox or of a horse covered with a whole skin, while the flesh 
was eaten out, or consumed, leaving quite an appropriate 
place for a hive of bees. Nor are we without evidence of bees 
having settled themselves in a human skull and in tombs. It 
is well known that they are very ingenious, and can accom- 
modate themselves to whatever kind of habitation may be 
at hand wherever they are. Hillocks, crevices of the rocks, 
and hollow trees and holes in the earth have furnished them 
hiving places. Jonathan, David's friend, we are told, came 



124 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

upon a bee-hive in the woods, where the honey-comb was 
dropping from the trees to the ground. 1 Sam. xiv. I 
fancy the lion's dried frame was a place very much to their 
liking. It was in a secluded spot, among vines and flowers. 
And the dry bones saved them a good deal of scaffolding. 
Herodotus says positively that u bees have swarmed in dry 
bones/' When therefore the caviller at our story has set- 
tled his account with the " hoary father of history/' then 
we may have more patience to talk with him about his ob- 
jections to the natural history of the Bible. The supply 
of honey was another proof of God's providential interfer- 
ence, and should have taught Samson that God's blessings 
are often far beyond our expectations. He looked to see 
the skeleton of the dead lion, and behold it was full of 
honey. 

3. In vindicating Samson from violating his vows in tak- 
ing honey from the carcass of the lion, we must remember 
that honey was not a prohibited article. A Nazarite might 
use it. And then, as we have seen, the lion's carcass was 
not now foul or unclean. There was no legal pollution in 
touching the bones of an animal bleached by the winds and 
rains of twelve months. Honey, says Hall, is honey still, 
though in a dead lion. And though accidentally met with, 
and found in a place that was once ceremonially unclean, it 
was not to be rejected. The grace of God is the more pre- 
cious if the vessel is unworthy. It is a weak device of the 
devil to persuade us to neglect the honey, because we do 
not like the lion. The treasure is in earthen vessels, that 
the excellence may be of God, and not of man. It is sound 
theology as well as common sense, to receive and enjoy our 
heavenly Father's gifts with thankfulness whenever they 
are bestowed upon us. Honey is not to be despised because 
it is sweet, nor the light because it is pleasant. Religion 
does not consist in making every thing sour and bitter. It 



SWEETNESS OUT OF THE STRONG. 125 

is God's will that we should be happy, and rejoice in the use 
of the good things he gives us. But it is a sin to abuse 
any of his gifts. 

"So his father went down unto the woman : and Samson 
made there a feast; for so used the young men to do." 
They are married. The self-will of the young man prevails. 
His fancy was of more avail than anything else in the uni- 
verse. Nor are we without similar examples among our 
every-day sort of people. The ingredients are just the 
same, only put together in smaller quantities, so that ordinary 
men are without the characteristic intensity of Samson. 
They are quite as guilty of earthly passions, but without 
his heroism. But here is the beginning of the end. Sam- 
son married is Samson in trouble. The bane of his life 
was his fondness for Philistine women. But is this a reflec- 
tion on God's institution of marriage ? Is Samson's unwise 
choice an argument against wedded life ? By no means. 
The abuse of a good thing does not prove that it is really 
evil. The marvellous Hebrew is now in bad company. At 
his wedding 

" He gathered revellers from far and near, 
The heartless parasites of present cheer." 

His wife was a heathen. She had not been brought up 

in the ways of godliness. She had never studied Samson's 

catechism, nor offered sacrifices to the God of Abraham, as 

he had done, and as his parents had done before him. 

There was no community of feeling between them. On 

every subject there was a want of sympathy. He was a 

Hebrew, she was a Philistine. He worshipped Jehovah, 

she worshipped Dagon. In politics and religion they were 

altogether antagonistic — irreconcilably so. There was no 

evidence indeed that she had any fancy for him. Her 

wishes seem not to have been considered at all. Nor does 

she seem to have had anything to say in the matter. It is 
11* 



126 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

strange that Samson should have been so fixed on marry- 
ing a woman without any true religion. Piety is wo- 
man's highest beauty and greatest protection. A man 
without religion is bad enough — a poor reprobate without 
peace; but a woman without religion is still more revolt- 
ing. She is " a flame without heat ; a flower without 
perfume." Amid all the trials, storms, and tribulations of 
this world, without religious faith, she is " a drift and a 
wreck." Who that has ever experienced the sweet truth- 
fulness and abiding love of a godly mother, or a pious wife, 
or a " sister dear," whose being is in her brother's, and in 
her devotion to her heavenly Father, can fail to appreciate 
the worth of piety in woman ? Let us have irreligion any- 
where else rather than in our mothers, wives, and sisters. 
They are our guardian angels, and if they become ministers 
of evil, all men are lost. 

It is only where the altars of family worship rise amid 
the toils of trade and art, and the hearth-stone glows with 
domestic love, that we expect a permanently prosperous com- 
munity. 

So vastly important is this whole subject — important in a 
social and patriotic point of view, as well as from a christian 
stand-point — that I dwell here a little by way of illustration, 
on the influence of marrying, and of married life in France. 
And I do so the more, because it has not received the atten- 
tion, in my humble opinion, that it deserves. The statesman 
and historian, M. Thiers, in his history of the French Revo- 
lution, expresses the belief that the corruptions and troubles 
of France are to be ascribed to the influence of her women 
during and subsequent to the reign of Louis XIV. He 
considers it the great misfortune of France that at the period 
of the Revolution, all the Bourbons of France, Naples, and 
Spain were under the influence of their wives and mistresses, 
who were not the women for their times. It is a curious 



SWEETNESS OUT OF THE STRONG. 127 

and highly suggestive fact, that from 1789 to the present 
time, it has been necessary to reduce the minimum height 
for enlistment in the troops of the line of France. In 1789 
it was five feet one inch French measure. After twenty-five 
years of constant war — after the battle of Waterloo, the 
minimum was reduced to less than four feet ten inches; and 
in 1830, to four feet nine inches. And during the reign 
of Louis Philippe it was again reduced. And if the same 
stature of the armies of Louis XVI. were required for the 
soldiers of Louis Napoleon III., more than one hundred and 
twenty thousand men would have to be dismissed from the 
line. 

These statements are chiefly taken and abridged from the 
North British Review for 1857. They are abundantly cor- 
roborated, however, by the current reports of France on the 
subject, and by the English Reviews for the years 1856 and 
1857 generally. In the years from 1831 to 1837, 504,000 
youths were admitted, and 459,000 rejected from the army 
of France, because of physical defects. And for the next 
six years, from 1839 to 1845, the deterioration was even 
greater — only 486,000 were admitted against 491,000 re- 
jected. As we read history, it is clear that the Copts, Greeks, 
Italians, and Spaniards as races have deteriorated ; while the 
Germans, the Russians, and the Anglo-Saxons, that is the 
British, Irish, Scotch, and Americans are still vigorous and 
advancing in power as nations. But how is it with France? 
Her emperor at present gives law to Europe. The French 
are a most extraordinary people. We are prepared to give 
to them the full meed of fame to which they are entitled. 
In many things they are emphatically a most wonderful 
people. But as a nation, their own statistics show they are 
not advancing in the same ratio, as their neighbours on the 
continent beyond the Rhine, nor across the channel. At the 
head of the civilization and political power of the age, how 



128 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

is it that their own army reports show such a marked de- 
terioration in their physical man ? I seek not at present 
any further solution of this question, than to look at it from a 
moral and religious point of view. And the explanation is 
found in the words of one of her own great statesmen: 
France wants religion. Yes, France has consumed her vital 
energies. She has exhausted herself for glory. Like lands 
forced to extraordinary fruitfulness, until they are so con- 
sumed that even chemical appliances can no longer bring 
forth the harvest. Wars, and the loss of life and energy, and 
the consumption of the healthy subsistence of the people by 
an enormous army, explain in part this exhaustion. But 
the cause is higher still — lies deeper still. It is found in a 
disregard of the laws of God in respect to the family. In 
France the sexual passions are subsidized to science, and 
licentiousness is governed by a philosophical police; "and in 
Paris one child in every three is born out of wedlock/' 

Though the social, martial, and intellectual status of France 
may at this moment be as high as it ever was, yet her own 
statistics show an obvious physical deterioration. This de- 
terioration, according to their own army figures, has been going 
on regularly for almost seventy years. And why? Because 
the family is not in France what the Bible teaches us it 
should be. The Bible does not govern the social habits of 
the French. The Creator, who has the residue of spirits 
in his hands, and could therefore have created many women 
for one man, made man male and female. "And wherefore 
one? That he might seek a godly seed." Mai. ii. 15. 
The all wise Creator says, also, " It is not good for man to 
be alone/' These ordinances of the Supreme, many of our 
philosophical neighbours disregard. And if they do not 
claim that it is good to be alone, they will at least be free 
from the virtuous ties of the family relation. Our idea of a 
home they entertain not. They live on the boulevards and 



SWEETNESS OUT OF THE STRONG. 129 

in the restaurants. Marriage is either never contracted, or 
if at all, late in life, and then few children are desired, and 
even these few are brought up by hired nurses. And the 
very causes, moreover, that lead to this neglect of marriage, 
strongly tend to the most pernicious physical results. The 
unrestrained indulgence of lust and gaiety are so expensive, 
that a lawful family cannot be supported at the same time; 
and besides, such indulgences weaken and destroy the con- 
stitution. Samson in part illustrates our position. He had 
no children. If he had married according to the usual cus- 
tom of his country, and brought up a family, he would have 
been a far better citizen, a more happy man, and not have 
come to a violent death. 

Politicians and philosophers may affect to smile at our 
simplicity; but from the lights before us, it is palpable that 
France in physical stature has deteriorated, while her neigh- 
bours of different social habits have not; and in the abuse of 
the social feelings which the Creator has ordained, and in 
the want of family organizations on Bible principles, we find 
causes quite sufficient to explain the diminished stature and 
physical defects of her masses. The society of women is a 
necessity of national existence, physically and morally. If 
"a man discovered America, it was a woman that equipped 
the voyage. " And so it is everywhere. No matter who it 
is that executes, he was born and trained by a woman. 
Every Columbus that has left his mark in the world, was 
furnished by his Isabella mother, who for that purpose laid 
aside her jewels, it may be her personal comforts, certainly 
her vanities and time-consuming fashions. Writers on the 
penal colonies of Great Britain tell us there is but little 
hope of a female convict unless she marries and becomes a 
mother. And it is quite as well known that men who are 
not restrained by the ties of home, and the influence of 
virtuous women, are almost hopeless. God's laws cannot be 



130 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

improved. Then let the wedded lamp burn brightly and 
cheerfully where it is already kindled; and if in any of our 
homes it has grown dim, let it be relumed. And let him 
be regarded as an enemy to God and man, who discourages 
marriage and advocates celibacy, or who corrupts society by 
weakening the bonds of the family which God hath joined 
together. 



THE WEDDING RIDDLE AND TRAGEDY. 131 



CHAPTER X. 

THE WEDDING RIDDLE AND TRAGEDY. 

u Hail, wedded love, mysterious law, true source 
Of human offspring, sole propriety 
In Paradise of all things common else ; 
By thee adulterous lust was driven from men, 
Among the bestial herds to range : by thee, 
Founded in reason, loyal, just, and pure, 
Relations dear, and all the charities 
Of father, son, and brother first were known. 
Perpetual fountain of domestic sweets — 
Here love his golden shafts employs, here lights 
His constant lamp, and waves his purple wings, 
Reigns here and revels ,* not in the bought smile 
Of harlots, — loveless, joyless, unendeared, 
Casual fruition ; nor in court-amours, 
Mixed dance, or wanton mask, or midnight hall, 
Or serenade, which the starved lover sings 
To his proud fair, best quitted with disdain." 

Milton. 

In the last chapter we went down to Samson's wedding. 
Let us stay awhile at the feast, and when tired of flowing 
cups and sparkling wit, we shall have one of those tragedies 
that marked the earlier administrations of our giant judge. 
His introduction to the bench was scarcely less distinguished 
than his exit from it. 

" So his father went down unto the woman ; and Samson 
made there a feast ; for so used the young men to do. And 



132 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

it came to pass, when they saw him, that they brought thirty 
companions to be with him." 

His father did not go alone ; but as the head (Sheikh) of 
the family, leading them to the wedding, he alone is men- 
tioned. The Chaldaic version has the sense of the passage 
exactly : " Went down relative to the affair of the woman." 
The thirty companions, under the pretence of friendship, 
were really spies. Many of the courtesies of the world, as 
well as of politicians, are hollow and thankless. u Open 
defiance is better than false love." 

It was the duty of these " children of the bridegroom," 
as his "friends," to make the company happy. The chief 
one was called "the governor of the feast," as we see in 
the marriage in Cana of Galilee. Such was the condition 
of the Hebrews at this time, that their oppressors would 
naturally be suspicious of any Hebrew of such noble bear- 
ing and prestige as Samson. The Philistines were probably 
somewhat acquainted with his conduct in the camp of Dan, 
and would watch him closely, even at his marriage feast. 

1. I do not see anything wrong in Samson making a 
feast, as the young men used to do. It belonged to the 
bride and her friends to say what its details should be. In 
so far, then, as he could comply with the customs of her 
people, without sinning, 'we find no fault. We may concede 
prejudices, but cannot compromise a duty. We may sur- 
render our likings, profits, or preferences, but we may not 
surrender a principle. And I do not see but that it is law- 
ful and proper to conform, in things not sinful, to the cus- 
toms of those with whom we live. If in the marriage feast 
there was any recognition of idols, or heathenish ceremonies, 
then Samson did wrong to submit. Some commentators 
so understand the history, but I do not see any evidence of 
idolatrous rites in the marriage or the feast. In teaching 
us to fear God and keep his commandments, the Bible does 



THE WEDDING RIDDLE AND TRAGEDY. 133 

not require us to be proud, mopish, rude, supercilious, or 
ill behaved. In becoming a christian a man does not cease 
to be any the less a gentleman. The want of genuine polite- 
ness is no proof of true religion. 

A careful examination of ancient history is a full verifica- 
tion of the customs alluded to in the text. The Philistines, 
early Egyptians, and ancient oriental nations, were not Turks 
in their treatment of women. They were more liberal as 
to the social position and privileges of their females than 
modern orientals are. Women, in ancient times, mingled 
with the men at their feasts, as they do now with us. The 
monuments of Egypt prove this, as well as the history of 
the ancient Chaldeans, Persians, Greeks, and Romans. Nor 
can it be shown, historically, that their presence was a 
disadvantage — rather the reverse. It has been said by 
one* of the most observing of men, and withal a great 
humorist, that "all men who avoid female society have 
dull perceptions, and are stupid; or have gross tastes, 
and revolt against what is pure. Your club swaggerers, 
who are sucking the butts of billiard cues all night, call 
female society insipid. Poetry is insipid to a yokel; beauty 
has no charms for a blind man ; music does not please a 
poor beast, who does not know one tune from another. It 
is better for you to pass an evening, once or twice a week, 
in a lady's drawing room, even though the conversation is 
rather slow, and you know the girl's songs by heart, than 
in a club, tavern, or in the pit of a theatre. All amuse- 
ments of youth to which women are not admitted, rely on 
it, are deleterious in their nature." Woman's society is 
necessary to correct the pride and selfishness of men, for a 
man is bound to be respectful to a lady. And it is a great 
point gained for elevating a man's character, and securing 

* Thackeray. 
12 



134 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

his good morals, when he is compelled to feel that there is 
somebody besides himself whose feelings and tastes are to 
be consulted — somebody besides his lordly self to whom he 
must be respectful and attentive. It is well known that 
men are better behaved, in every respect, when restrained 
by woman's refining presence. 

The same customs alluded to in our history are found 
still in the East. Islam has not sensibly affected the 
usages of the Arabs, Turks, Hindoos, Persians, or Africans, 
except where some peculiar religious rite is concerned. It 
is not probable that the institutes of Moses made the 
Hebrews differ from the Canaanite neighbours in their 
general customs — only where their religion prescribed a 
difference. Oriental christian women — in Nazareth and 
Damascus for example — are not distinguished materially 
from Mohammedan women in their dress and social habits. 
Women in our mission churches in Mohammedan countries, 
are separated from the men by a wall or screen when at 
worship. 

2. At weddings it was common to have games, riddles, 
and the like amusements. 

" And Samson said unto them, I will now put forth a 
riddle unto you : if ye can certainly declare it me, within 
the seven days of the feast, and find it out, then I will give 
you thirty sheets and thirty changes of garments. But if 
ye cannot declare it me, then shall ye give me thirty sheets 
and thirty changes of garments. And they said unto him, 
Put forth thy riddle, that we may hear it. And he said 
unto them, Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of 
the strong came forth sweetness/' 

An old scholiast on Aristophanes is quoted by Dr. Clark, 
as saying that it was "a custom among the ancient Greeks 
to propose, at their festivals, what were called griphoi, riddles, 
enigmas, or very obscure sayings, both curious and difficult, 



THE WEDDING RIDDLE AND TRAGEDY. 135 

and to give a recompense to those who found them out, which 
generally consisted either in a festive crown, or a goblet full 
of wine. Those who failed to solve them were condemned to 
drink a large portion of fresh water, or of wine mingled with 
sea water, which they were compelled to take down at one 
draught, without drawing their breath, their hands being 
tied behind their backs. Sometimes they gave the crown 
to the deity in honour of whom the festival was made; and 
if none could solve the riddle, the reward was given to him 
who proposed it." 

The classics abound in enigmas proposed at such enter- 
tainments. The Greeks excelled in them. The solution of 
these "banquet-riddles," or " cup-questions," was always 
highly applauded, and a failure implied a forfeit. Is there 
any reason why the Greeks did not borrow from Samson's 
country, by the way of Egypt? And may we not take a 
profitable lesson from the ancients, as to our social entertain- 
ments? It were a much better way to spend our time at 
seasons of merry-making, in expounding enigmas and riddles, 
than in slandering our neighbours, or in gluttony or exces- 
sive drink. At our weddings let there be entertainment for 
the mind, as well as employment for the palate and the 
heels. It is something to avoid all foolish talking and vain 
jestings, and all filthiness of speech, as an apostle enjoins; 
but it is more to improve the time for gaining knowledge 
and strengthening good resolutions. It is surprising how 
intelligent some men are merely from skill in conversation. 
They read hardly anything, but from being associated with 
well informed persons, and being good listeners, and skilful 
in asking questions, they acquire a vast amount of useful 
and important information. Our social habits and oppor- 
tunities should be diligently employed in doing and receiving 
good. 

At the wedding all goes on merrily. Sport and play are 



136 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

in the ascendant. The cup-questions were as sparkling as 
the cups. Many were the passages at wit. At last Samson 
is aroused. He says, I will propose a riddle. He pits his 
wit against the whole of his companions. If they solve his 
riddle, he is to pay thirty changes of raiment. If they failed, 
they are to pay him one change of raiment apiece. The 
advantages were clearly on their side. They could lose but 
one change each, while he puts in peril thirty. The strong 
and the great may afford, however, to be generous, but 
Samson had an odd humour generally of putting himself 
against great odds. No doubt he thought himself sure of 
victory. Nobody but himself knew about the bees and the 
honey. Why should he not win? The combination of in- 
cidents implied in his riddle was certainly rare, if indeed 
they had ever been found before. But as in all good riddles, 
the explanation was palpable, beyond dispute, as soon as 
given. It was like Columbus's solution of making an egg 
stand on end on the table. As usual on such occasions, as 
soon as the riddle was propounded, almost every one fancied 
his ingenuity was competent for the solution. There was 
much guessing, and many knowing looks among the guests. 
But the meaning still eluded their grasp. Six days of the 
seven during which the solution must be given, or the forfeit 
incurred, have past. Their pride and avarice are excited. 
They could not brook the idea of being defeated by a young, 
long-haired, rough looking Hebrew. Nor was it to their 
taste to part with their fine wardrobes. Nor were they at 
all scrupulous as to the means they might employ. They 
were shrewd enough to see in what direction Samson's 
weakest points lay. Therefore they said unto his wife, 
tl Entice thy husband, that he may declare unto us the 
riddle, lest we burn thee and thy father's house with fire." 
The alternative was not a very appropriate one for the honey- 
moon. It was rather rough language for her countrymen to 



THE WEDDING RIDDLE AND TRAGEDY. 137 

use if she did not get them out of this difficulty. They do 
not seem to have had any regard for the innocence of those 
they were ready to destroy — no regard for human life. It 
may be that much more may have been said and done than 
appears from the record. Surely such an appeal would not 
have been made, even by Philistines, to a young bride, un- 
less the case was deemed a desperate one. Nor can I think, 
that even a Philistine wife would betray her newly acquired 
husband in a moment and for a slight cause. Her country- 
men must have been very urgent. They must at first have 
been indignantly repulsed, and have often appealed to her 
patriotism, and love for her kindred, before she could have 
entertained their treacherous proposals, and yielded at last 
under the pressure of their cruel threatenings. 

3. The forfeit was thirty sheets and thirty changes of gar- 
ments. The Hebrew for sheets is sedinim, hence the Greek 
slndoiij fine linen. The term here means body garments, 
dresses, shirts rather than sheets — probably garments an- 
swering to the humja and kaftan of the Arabs. The humja 
is the shirt that hangs down outside of the drawers to the 
knees. The kaftan is the coat with open sleeves. Others 
think the sheets of the text are the chayhes of the Arabs, 
answering very nearly to the Scottish highland plaid. The 
marginal reading shirts is in this case the better translation. 

"And he went down to Askelon, and slew thirty men of 
them, and took their spoil, and gave change of garments 
unto them which expounded the riddle." 

u Their spoil," or apparel — the garments they had on, in- 
cluding shirts and cloaks, though not here expressly mentioned. 
He obtained from them what he needed to pay his forfeit. 
It may be after all these shirts were the flowing robes of per- 
sons of quality. It is highly probable the men whom Sam- 
son slew were men of rank, and if such their garments were 
full and costly. Isaiah uses the same Hebrew term for the 
12* 



138 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

splendid dresses of the great in his day. These mantles or 
shawls, as we should call them, were generally made of wool, 
though some were made of linen. The young man in the 
gospel, who followed our Lord, when laid hold of fled naked, 
leaving "the linen cloth." This does not mean that he 
was absolutely naked, when he left his plaid. But rather 
than remain a prisoner, he slipt off his mantle as a man 
might now do his loose cloak, and ran, leaving it in their 
hands. A similar explanation belongs to Peter's throwing 
off his fisher's coat or tunic. The meaning is not that he 
was in a state of absolute nudity, but deprived of the usual 
mantle or flowing garment. 

4. Let us hear how they proceed with the solution. On 
the seventh day, the last day of the marriage feast, but not 
till just before the going down of the sun, they said to 
Samson, " What is sweeter than honey ? and what is 
stronger than a lion ?" In Bible times, in Bible lands, as 
it is still, it will be remembered that weddings were occa- 
sions of great ceremony. The feasting usually continued 
seven days. Laban, in Gen. xxix. 27, 28, refers to Leah's 
week of nuptial ceremonies which could not be interrupted 
by the espousal of Rachel. The Greeks and Romans called 
the marriage week of feasting "the nuptial joy," and did 
not allow any work to be done, other than what was neces- 
sary to carry on the entertainment, nor permit any signs of 
mourning. It was also the custom to make and receive 
presents during the nuptial feast, particularly on the third 
day. In partriarchal times the bride's father always pre- 
sented his daughter with a female slave for a handmaid, 
who was to be inseparable from the family. She was to 
nurse the mother and the little ones, and to be faithful to 
her old master's daughter, if all the rest of the world should 
forsake her. Other presents were also exchanged accord- 
ing to the wealth and rank of the parties, consisting gener- 



THE WEDDING RIDDLE AND TRAGEDY. 139 

ally of jewelry, couches, beds, vestments, and all sorts of 
things reckoned needful for house-keeping. 

" And Samson's wife wept before him — wept before him 
the seven days while the feast lasted." Her weeping was 
not out of affection for him. Her tears were crocodile 
tears, or they were tears of terror for her own sake. She 
loved him not. She said, however, " Thou dost but hate me, 
and lovest me not: thou hast put forth a riddle unto the 
children of my people, and hast not told it to me. And he 
said unto her, Behold, I have not told it my father, nor my 
mother, and shall I tell it thee ?" Is not this the address of a 
jealous or teasing wife still ? When she wishes to have ex- 
pressions of endearment, does she not hypothecate charges of 
want of love for her against her husband, that she may have 
the pleasure of hearing him deny them ? Nor is she less 
skilful than Samson's wife in instituting a rivalry between 
herself and the children of her own and especially of his 
people. And is not Samson's answer just the type of an 
honest heart — of a great and true man ? In a simple, 
straight forward way, he assures her that he had not kept 
the secret from her from any want of affection. For he had 
not told it to his own father or mother. Samson's reply is 
a proverb still in the East. When any one wishes to 
excuse himself from telling a secret, he says, " Why ! I have 
not told it either to my father or my mother : how then can I 
tell it to you ?" " My friend, do tell me the secret." " Tell 
you ? Yes, when I have told my parents." (See Roberts, 
and others.) The idea that Samson wished to impress upon 
his wife was, that he had not treated her with any disre- 
spect or coldness. It is as if he had said : I have been long 
with my father and mother. They have uniformly treated 
me with kindness. They have done a great deal for me — 
much more than I shall ever be able to do for them. They 
are worthy of my fullest confidence. I love them dearly, 



140 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

and yet I have not told them this secret. How then can I 
tell it you ? If I tell it to you, will I not show a want of 
respect for them ? 

I fancy the human races are very much the same in all 
ages and countries. And although it is heterodox, I should 
think it about as difficult a thing for a man in modern times 
to keep a secret as for a woman. I am not sure, but when 
great interests are involved, women are more trustworthy 
than men. Their firmness and ready wit in emergencies 
are proverbial. A Hindoo proverb says : " To a woman 
tell not a secret." But shall we believe a heathen saying, 
rather than the experience of a christian age ? Samson's 
heathen wife is not our model. And besides, as it has been 
shrewdly remarked, if Samson could not keep his own secret, 
how could he expect his wife to do it ? Strange that he 
was " fool enough to suppose that another would be more 
faithful to him than he was to himself." Indeed, under 
all the circumstances, it is wonderful he did not suspect 
treachery. What just grounds had he to trust in a Philis- 
tine woman ? 

Whether she prevailed, by a promise of secresy or not, 
the history does not say. If so, the promise was soon 
broken. It was made to deceive. But who would believe 
the word of a faithless wife ? And yet how can she be 
resisted? She pleads, and weeps, and accuses him of not 
loving her. In such a contest, who is always victorious ? 
May not a woman's tears prevail — especially when that wo- 
man is a young wife, and the husband uxorious as only Sam- 
son could be ? Some allowance should be made for the 
Israelitish judge. Who that ever witnessed a similar strife, 
can wonder that the strong man did not stand out against 
her tears ? Young, lovely, and his bride ! Few men of 
strong minds would have held out any better than the giant 
judge. To us his greatest weakness seems to have been his 



THE WEDDING RIDDLE AND TRAGEDY. 141 

blindness in not seeing the net that was set for him. He 
must have been one of those honest, simple hearted, unsus- 
pecting great souls that cannot apprehend the depths of the 
cunning, nor the meanness of the selfish and pusillanimous. 
And after all, there is a manly, a heroic necessity to rely 
on the truth and tenderness of woman's nature. In child- 
hood and youth, in manhood and old age, she is man's truest 
friend. In sickness and sorrow, in works of charity and in 
acts of piety, she has too often proved herself to be man's 
angel of mercy, to be traduced by the heartless wretch who 
is incapable of appreciating her worth. All men are not 
Samsons, nor are all women like the Timnite bride, nor like 
Delilah of Sorek. Those who are the loudest and the most 
profane in their complaints of the weakness of women, are 
the very men who have themselves done the most to corrupt 
them. Woman is man's other self — without her he is 
nothing. She is his blessing and his joy both in the sun- 
shine and beauty of the world, and in its darkness and 
sorrow. Who, ye revilers of womankind — who were your 
mothers ? And besides, has woman no wrongs — no cruel, 
outrageous wrongs to avenge, and to avenge only by pour- 
ing out to your faithless sex the cup you yourselves have 
drugged first for her ? 

5. The solution is given at the appointed hour. Grimly 
exultant the men of the city, just before the sun went down 
on the seventh day, said unto Samson : " What is sweeter 
than honey ? and what is stronger than a lion ?" In a mo- 
ment he saw he had been betrayed. " And he said unto 
them, If ye had not ploughed with my heifer, ye had not 
found out my riddle." Josephus paraphrases the interview 
thus : They said to Samson, " Nothing is more disagreeable 
than a lion to those that light on it, and nothing is sweeter 
than honey to those that make use of it." To which he 
replied : " Nothing is more deceitful than a woman ; for 



142 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

such was the perfidious person that discovered my interpre- 
tation to you." He meant, doubtless, that without the as- 
sistance of his wife, they could not have told the riddle. 
And on this plea, he might have disputed whether they 
were entitled to the forfeit. " If ye had not ploughed with 
my heifer," was probably a common metaphor, or proverb. 
It seems to have been used with two shades of meaning, one 
that of licentious intercourse, and the other merely of fa- 
miliarity. The original does not necessarily convey the idea 
of wantonness, if it allows it at all. And his return to be 
reconciled forbids such an interpretation. The idea is this 
— Samson compares his wife to a young heifer not yet fully 
subdued to the yoke — not yet learned to go patiently — not 
yet obedient. This explanation, though it may not be ele- 
gant, mitigates her offence, and is fully sustained by the 
original and the context. 

6. Though betrayed and badly treated, Samson scorns 
to complain, but goes right off to procure the means to pay 
his forfeit. He was neither a cruel husband nor a repudi- 
ator. 

" And the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he 
went down to Askelon, and slew thirty men of them, and 
took their spoil, and gave change of garments unto them 
which expounded the riddle." 

By the Spirit of the Lord coming upon him, we are to 
understand, that he was inspired with the courage and 
strength to perform the following feat. He made Askelon 
his wardrobe, and brought thence the wager of garments 
for the winning Philistines, lined with the blood of their 
own countrymen. We know not the causes that led to this 
pitched battle between Samson and the men of Askelon. 
Samson may have had a few warriors with him. If he had 
not, the odds were very great against him. Nor must we 
forget that the Philistines were at war with Israel. There 



THE WEDDING RIDDLE AND TRAGEDY. 143 

may have been a nominal truce between Dan and the Philis- 
tines of Timnath, and war still raging between the Hebrews 
and the Askelonites. And we must also remember that in 
this case, as when Moses slew the Egyptian according to 
the Noachian precept, Samson was not slaying merely for 
his own pleasure, nor merely to gratify any personal ill will. 
He was fulfilling his commission to deliver Israel. The 
Philistines were idolators — they were enemies to God as well 
as to him and his countrymen. For their sins they had 
been already tried in the court of Jehovah, and convicted, 
and were now under sentence, and Samson was appointed 
high sheriff to execute the sentence. His acts were there- 
fore by the direction and assistance of God. The Hebrew 
government in this heroic age was a pure theocracy. Sam- 
son was God's lieutenant general, commissioned to execute 
judgment upon the Philistines. Their crimes were also 
sins, for Jehovah was both the true God and the acting king 
of Israel. The punishment on the Philistines was, first, be- 
cause of their sins against God ; yet as God's messenger, 
the executioner of the divine sentence upon them, Samson 
was also revenging his own injury and his national wrongs. 

As to the hypercriticism urged by some, that as Samson 
was a Nazarite, he could not have touched the dead bodies 
to get their garments, it may be answered, that as he was 
acting under the influence of the Spirit of the Lord, he may 
have had a dispensation in this case, to do what on ordinary 
occasions he could not have done, just as our Lord explains 
the law of the Sabbath ; or the prohibition may not have 
extended to a Nazarite for life, but only for a limited period 
— or better still, as he was chief magistrate, he could have 
had no difficulty in obtaining men to strip off their clothes 
and carry them for him to Timnath. 

7. Samson's " anger was kindled and he went up to his 
father's house. " Anger is as natural as a smile. His wife's 



144 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

treachery was a just cause of auger, and his going up to his 
father's house at this time showed unusual prudence and 
forbearance. When he returned to Timnath to pay the for- 
feit, he seems not to have seen his wife. But lordly as 
Achilles, and quite as angry and proud in his own self-con- 
sciousness of unmerited wrong and impulsive ferocity, he 
strides off home to his father and mother. It was not wise 
for him to trust himself in his wife's presence when the 
sense of his wrongs was so warm within him. He probably 
feared he might commit some great outrage, if he remained 
in Timnath. It is to his praise that he thus restrained him- 
self, and that when his anger did burst forth in consuming fire, 
it was not so much on account of his own wounded pride as 
to avenge his countrymen. Patriotism and piety are con- 
spicuous in his heroic deeds. And in his lingering at home 
we see traces of filial love and of early piety. Yet for some 
reason or other, he does not seem to have made his parents 
his confidants. He neither told them how he was moved 
by the Spirit of the Lord, nor did he ask their advice about 
his plans against their enemies. 

" But Samson's wife was given to his companion, whom 
he had used as his friend. " That is, she was given by her 
father and the chiefs of the town in marriage to his first 
groomsman. Although she had but little liberty in the 
matter, still no doubt she was glad the Hebrew was gone, 
and that she was the wife of his friend. How far Samson 
was justified in leaving his wife is not altogether clear from 
the text. Most probably he did not intend a final separa- 
tion, although this was the result. The whole history is not 
written out. Many interpreters, inconsistently and strangely, 
in view of their understanding of the eighteenth verse, 
blame him as much for leaving his wife as for marrying her. 
It is a most practical and important matter for us to guard 
against the demoralization of society by allowing too slight 



THE WEDDING RIDDLE AND TRAGEDY. 145 

causes to break the nuptial bands. Certainly one of the 
great sins of our times is the facility of obtaining divorces. 
Too little sanctity and permanence is attached to the mar- 
riage relation. Marriage is a sacred institution. It was a gift 
from heaven to man before there was any sin. Its purity 
lies at the foundation of our prosperity. The marriage re- 
lation ought not to be dissolved for any slight cause — not 
from mere whims, or fancies, or momentary passions, nor on 
account of imaginary wrongs. I could wish our statutes 
and our practice were more strict on this subject. 

The lesson has often been drawn from Samson's marriage 
— that christians should only marry in the Lord. Samson's 
case is indeed an admonitory one. Hereditary enemies 
allied by the most sacred and endearing bonds — a Nazarite, 
one peculiarly set apart to the service of God, united in 
matrimony to an idolatress. Speaking after the manner of 
our times, we should say, a fair face and a warm fancy made 
sad work with the strongest man's piety. The warning of 
the good bishop on mixed marriages, although scarcely ever 
heeded, is worth a repetition. " I wish," says he, " Manoah 
could speak so loud, that all our Israelites might hear him. Is 
there never a woman among all thy brethren, or among all 
thy people, that thou goest to marry a stranger to God and 
religion V 9 It were often better to attend our children's 
funeral than their wedding. Marriage is always a solemn 
event. Even when the choice has been agreeable to all par- 
ties, the future is an unopened volume. A veil of awful 
mystery hangs before the altar of marriage, which Omnipo- 
tence alone can penetrate. There is no surer way to a 
broken heart, to unutterable woe, and an early grave, than 
to marry a fool, or a man without correct principles, a sot, 
a spendthrift, a knave, or a debauchee, though rich as Cro3- 
sus, clever as Byron, or handsome as Absalom. 
13 



146 THE GIANT JUDGE. 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE JUDGMENT OP THE FOXES. 

" And Samson caught three hundred foxes, and took firebrands, and 
turned tail to tail, and put a firebrand in the midst between the two 
tails. And when he had set the brands on fire, he let them go into the 
standing corn of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks, and also 
the standing corn, with the vineyards and olives." 

At wheat-harvest, which in Palestine is about the time 
of Pentecost, when there is much rejoicing in the country, 
Samson visited his wife with a kid. We have seen that 
when he was betrayed by his wife, he left her in great dis- 
gust, and went to Askelon and slew thirty Philistines and 
paid his forfeit, and then went home and remained a good 
while with his parents. In the mean time his anger cools, 
and his affection begins to return, and not knowing that 
his wife had been given to his friend, (probably the very 
person to whom she had revealed the riddle,) he takes a 
kid, or fawn, and returns to be reconciled to her. His 
father-in-law was doubtless sincere in offering him his wife's 
sister in her stead. This was the best indemnity he could 
make. From the case of Laban, who, after he had cheated 
Jacob with Leah, gave him Rachel, we see that it was not 
unusual for a man to marry two sisters. It was probably to 
correct abuses of this kind that the law of Moses was after- 
wards enacted. Samson's forbearance is to be noted, as 



THE JUDGMENT OF THE FOXES. 147 

also bis effort at reconciliation. Even his purpose to avenge 
himself, seems to be the utterance of a patriotic judge, 
rather than of an aggrieved husband. If he had meditated 
retaliation merely for his personal injuries, his wife and her 
father were the parties to have been chastised. But he felt 
that it was as an Israelite chiefly that he had been injured, 
and as such he would be more guilty than even the Philis- 
tines, if he did not avenge this national insult. His man- 
ner of avenging himself was extraordinary, singular, and 
effective. His agents were one hundred and fifty pairs of 
foxes, with firebrauds tied to their tails, which burned their 
corn, and vineyards, and olives. In the time of wheat-har- 
vest, the corn was partly standing, and partly gathered into 
shocks; all dead ripe, and of course easily burned. Infi- 
dels have attempted to be merry over Samson's foxes and 
the burning cornfields of the Philistines. But let such 
remember that the corn was not maize or Indian corn, but 
wheat, which when ripe could be easily burned, either 
standing in the field or gathered into shocks. And as to 
Samson's ability to catch so many foxes, let it be observed : 
1. That the Hebrew shualim may comprehend not only 
foxes, but wolves and hyenas. The Bible name for fox is sup- 
posed to be derived from its habit of burrowing or dwelling 
in holes in the earth, and may be as applicable to wolves, 
hyenas, and jackals as to foxes. The Septuagint and the 
Vulgate both understand the animal in this place to be the 
fox. It is true that a different Hebrew word is used for 
the jackal; but it is probable the term shualim included 
this animal also. Hasselquist and some other naturalists 
have thought the shual of Palestine was an animal between 
a wolf and a fox — u the little eastern fox," as they denomi- 
nate it, and not our ordinary fox. When hungry, this 
animal is said to devour little children, and even old and 



148 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

feeble persons. It is only by the context that we can tell 
what kind of animals are meant in a given passage. 

2. But taking the term here in its comprehensive sense, 
as we well may, there is no doubt but that the country was 
full of foxes. The Scriptures often speak of them in the 
Holy Land. Their cubs ruined the vineyards, according to 
the Song of Solomon, ii. 15. " Take us the foxes, the 
little foxes that spoil our vines." And Jeremiah laments 
that the foxes had taken possession of the hills of Judea. 
Lam. v. 18. And Ezekiel compares the numerous false 
prophets of his day to the same animals, xiii. 4. And in 
the first book of Samuel, a portion of this very country is 
called Shual, that is the land of foxes — famous for the 
number of these animals found in it. And a neighbouring 
city belonging to one of the tribes of Israel was called 
Hazar-shual ; that is, the abode or habitation of the fox. 
Every traveller through the country to this day, confirms 
the testimony of Bochart, Bellonius, and Morizon, that it 
swarms with animals of this species. They lurk in com- 
panies of two or three hundred on the borders of the desert, 
and in the ruins of old towns, and in the ledges of the 
rocks. 

3. Samson was no doubt an expert hunter as well as a 
terrible fighter, and well skilled in taking foxes. And then, 
as a chief magistrate, he could have employed as many men 
to assist him as was necessary. When Nebuchadnezzar is 
said to have built the great Babylon, and Solomon to have 
built the temple at Jerusalem, the meaning is not that they 
did all the work with their own royal hands. They did 
not lay a single brick, stone, or timber themselves. But 
they caused the work to be done. There is no necessity 
then to prove that Samson caught all the foxes himself. 
Nor, 

4. Are we restricted to any short or definite period of 



THE JUDGMENT OF THE FOXES. 149 

time in which the foxes must have been taken. It is not 
said they were all caught in one hour, one day, or one week. 
He may have been several months in capturing them, for 
anything the text says. 

5. Some say, though I do not attach any importance to 
the suggestion, that a miraculous agency was employed in 
bringing the animals to Samson, as in causing them to come 
to Adam to be named, and to Noah iDto the ark. It is not 
denied that God can control the instincts and guide the pro- 
pensities of beasts, birds, and fishes. This we see in Daniel's 
lions, Noah's dove, and Peter's fish ; but when there was 
no necessity, so to speak, for divine interposition in a miracu- 
lous manner, I prefer not to call for it. In theology, as in 
philosophy, there is no useless expenditure of Omnipotent 
energy. But a miracle is none the less a true miracle, be- 
cause the means by which it is wrought are natural. The 
converging of the natural agencies in force on the desired 
point and for an avowed purpose, is sufficient to make a 
miracle. 

Surely it is not so unheard of and incredible a thing, to 
have collected such a number of these animals in ancient 
times, as to destroy the credibility and literality of our story, 
because it contains this statement about the foxes. Did 
not Sylla show at one time to the Romans one hundred 
lions ? And Caesar four hundred, and Pompey six hundred ? 
The history of Roman pleasures, according to the books, 
states that the Emperor Probus let loose into the theatre at 
one time one thousand wild boars, one thousand does, one 
thousand ostriches, one thousand stags, and a countless mul- 
titude of other wild animals. At another time he exhibited 
one hundred leopards from Libya, one hundred from Syria, 
and three hundred bears. When the caviller settles his 
hypercriticism with Vopiseus's Life of Probus, and with 
Roman history generally, we shall then consider whether 
13* 



150 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

our story should be rejected as incredible because of its 
three hundred foxes. 

It has also been proved by learned men that the Romans 
had a custom, which they seem to have borrowed from the 
Phenicians, who were near neighbours of the Philistines — if 
they were not Philistines themselves — of letting loose, in 
the middle of April, (the feast of Ceres) — the very time 
of wheat-harvest in Palestine, but not in Italy — in the cir- 
cus, a large number of foxes with burning torches to their 
tails. Is Samson's the original, or did he adopt a common 
custom of the country? The story of the celebrated 
Roman vulpinaria, or feast of the foxes, as told by Ovid 
and others, bears a remarkable similarity to the history be- 
fore us, ascribing the origin of this Roman custom to the 
following circumstance : A lad caught a fox which had 
stolen many fowls, and having enveloped his body with 
straw, set it on fire and let him run loose. The fox, hoping 
to escape from the fire, took to the thick standing corn 
which was then ready for the sickle ; and the wind blowing 
hard at the time, the flames soon consumed the crop. And 
from this circumstance ever afterwards, a law of the city 
of Rome required that every fox caught should be burnt 
alive. This is the substance of the Roman story, which 
Bochart and others insist took its rise from the burning of 
the cornfields of the Philistines by Samson's foxes. The 
Judean origin of the custom is certainly the most probable, 
and in every way the most satisfactory. Commemorative 
institutions or fetes always have their origin in facts. Of 
this we may be well assured, though the record of the 
original facts and even the facts themselves should be lost 
through the lapse of time. (See Ovid and his Scholiasts. 
Fastor. lib. iv. vers. 679.) 

" And took fire-brands." Our word lamp is probably 
through the Greek lampas, from the Hebrew original in 



THE JUDGMENT OF THE FOXES. 



151 



this place, lapidim, or, as it is in the Chaldee and Syriac, 
lampidim. These lampidim were a kind of torch or flam- 
beau, made with pitch. The animals seemed to be tied 
together in pairs, tail to tail, by cords of moderate length, 
and the torch fastened to this cord about midway. How 



//fer 







these animals thus treated would act, we may easily compre- 
hend. It is well known that the whole fox race is prone to 
range about houses and fields, and when frightened, as these 
were, to run for cover to the thickest corn^ if standing, or 
for the sheaves or stacks, if gathered ; and being vexed by 
the pain of the fire, they would first worry, and snap, and 
fight, and run at cross purposes, and so spread the conflagra- 
tion, until we are quite ready to conclude with Calinet, 
U that nothing could be better adapted to produce a general 
conflagration, than this expedient of combustion-communi- 
cating jackals. We must therefore suppose these torches 
were at some distance from the animals, so as not to burn 
them, and that they burnt long without being consumed." 

I am not aware that any experiment has ever been made 
to see how foxes would act tied tail to tail with a fire-brand 
between them. But Dr. Kitto, (to whose Biblical Illus- 



152 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

trations I would especially refer the reader for much valu- 
able information on this and kindred topics,) says he once 
saw two dogs so tied together, and that they first pulled 
in contrary directions, and made no head way at all ; but 
at last ran off parallel with considerable speed. And it is 
presumed foxes are as sagacious as dogs. At first there may 
have been some indecision and uncertain turnings, but very 
soon each couple found that the only way to reach cover, 
was for them to run together in parallel lines distant from 
each other by the length of their tails and burning brands. 
And thus the very purpose was all the more effectually car- 
ried out. The fox is a swift runner. And when tied 
together as in this case, they were sure to run this way and 
that way, and to spread the fire all over the fields. Nor 
could they readily escape to the woods, or to their holes in 
the rocks, where the fire-brands would have been extin- 
guished. 

It will be remembered that the cornfields of that country 
were not separated by high fences, or deep ditches or hedges, 
but extended as now in Celo-Syria, or Esdraelon, as far as 
the eye can see, one vast level unbroken plain of waving 
grain. One hundred and fifty pairs of such animals, run- 
ning with flaming torches to their tails, would very soon set 
an immense plain in a blaze. The tying of the animals in 
pairs may have been to prevent their reaching cover too 
soon. And besides, if the fire brand had been attached to 
them singly, the tail would have fallen to the ground, and 
the brand would have soon died out; but being sustained 
by the tension between the pair, the brand flamed out, and 
burnt all the better for their rapid motion after it was once 
kindled, and so the greater would be the damage. 

Frequent fires occur to this day among the towns of 
the interior of Asia and Africa, that are kindled and made 
to spread from town to town by their enemies tying a burn- 



THE JUDGMENT OF THE FOXES. 153 

ing cotton thread to the tail of a large species of buzzard, 
which flies to the thatch of the houses when set adrift.* 

Dr. Kitto says of the burning of the harvest-fields, that 
as bread is the staff of life, if any other man than Sam- 
son had done it, he should have been " hanged" — " that 
it looks like both a religious and social sacrifice, deliber- 
ately to waste and destroy it." Now if it would have 
been right to hang any other man for doing what Samson 
did under the same circumstances, then Samson should 
have been hanged. But where is the authority for hang- 
ing or taking away life for any crime except that of murder? 
And besides, I do not seethe affair in that light. Was not 
Samson the divinely commissioned deliverer of Israel ? Were 
not the Philistines at war with Israel ? Had he not then 
a right to cut off their supplies ? It is allowed in war to 
deprive an enemy of the means of subsistence, and thus 
liberate the state from their depredations. But if this is 
not sufficient, our hero bore a divine commission before he 
was born, to do the Philistines all the harm he could. This 
must end the strife. The method adopted we have admit- 
ted was a singular one, but it was very effective. Samson's 
commission was to deliver Israel from the Philistines. He 
was raised up to be a judge, called and appointed by God 
himself, who was then the only king of Israel, to execute 
judgment on the Philistines. He was not acting as a 
private person, nor taking the law into his own hands, nor 
assuming the sovereignty of the state. It was his duty to 
prosecute the mission for which God had raised him up. 
True, he is now the more ready to begin it, because he has 
personal wrongs to avenge. But he feels that it is as an 
Israelite that he has been insulted and wronged in the mat- 
ter of his wife, and his patriotism and the honour of his God 

* Capt Clapperton's Journal of his Second Expedition, p. 274. 



154 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

require him to punish them. His enemies are numerous 
and more warlike than his own countrymen. Their fields 
are full of ripe corn. The country abounds in foxes. These 
animals are swift runners. Why may he not use them as 
his agents in afflicting the Philistines? Why may he not 
rid the country of so many of these noxious animals either 
by thus destroying them, or frightening them away, and at 
the same time avenge his personal wrongs by punishing the 
Philistines in the way that would bring upon them the 
highest ridicule and contempt ? 

In this history we have a most remarkable illustration of 
the terrible law of retribution which the Supreme Ruler of 
the universe has ordained, the presence of which runs like 
a flame of fire through all the history and through all the 
dispensations of providence. In selecting foxes as instru- 
ments of his vengeance, Samson selected the animals which, 
of all others, were the most appropriate to the nature of the 
insult. Foxes are cunning; and it was through their wit 
the Philistines had prevailed against him. They had won 
the garments by stratagem, and now their cornfields are 
burned by foxes. 

But the judgments of God that begin on a man's prop- 
erty, if not arrested by penitence and forgiveness, soon take 
hold of his person. This was the process even with Job, 
and with the Egyptians, though in them the attributes illus- 
strated are different. From the murrain among their cat- 
tle, the Lord proceeds until the first born is slain. " And 
if judgment begin at the house of God, what will be the 
end of the ungodly, who obey not the gospel V 

When the Philistines saw their cornfields, vineyards, and 
olive-yards destroyed, they at once understood how and for 
what it was done ; they therefore came and burnt Samson's 
wife and her father, inflicting upon her the very death 
threatened, and to escape which she had betrayed her newly 



THE JUDGMENT OF TIIE FOXES. 155 

married husband. Because Samson had burnt their fields 
of corn, the Philistines burnt the Timnites. They must 
have felt that Samson had been unjustly treated, and hoped 
by this means to appease him. The retribution upon Sam- 
sou's wife and father was most inhuman and barbarous, and 
in every way out of all proportion in its severity. It does 
not appear that either of them had any thing to do with 
the burning of the cornfields, yet their own countrymen 
burn them for what the Hebrew Samson had done. The 
fire-brands of the running foxes were not so destructive as 
the fire of dissension kindled among the Philistines. There 
is nothing more pleasing to the enemies of free institutions 
than to see their friends pulling each other by the ears. 
No other hands but our own can ever pull down and destroy 
the temples of justice, liberty, and religion erected for us 
by our blessed fathers in this fair land. Union is our 
strength. 

Samson's wife in trying to avoid Scylla fell into Cha- 
rybdis. She betrayed her husband, because she feared her 
brethren would burn her and her father's house with fire, 
and yet by their hands she was burned with fire and her 
father also. She leaped into the flames she meant to avoid. 
The Jews who crucified our Lord did just the same thing. 
They professed to proceed against him to put him to death 
as Caesar's friends, lest the Romans should come and de- 
stroy them. And they succeeded in crucifying him, but 
the Romans came, and burnt their temple and city with 
fire. It is still the rule of providence, that as men measure 
to others so it shall be measured to them again. It should 
be eternally before our minds, that true principle is the only 
expediency. What God does is right. What he commands 
we must do. His will is the supreme rule. Our duty is 
obedience. All history, both sacred and profane, shows that 
the evil that men do in trying to escape by continuing to 



156 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

sin — by doing wrong to correct a wrong — by doing evil that 
good may come, even when their motives are admitted to 
be good — always meets them sooner or later in their flight. 
Sin added to sin only enhances guilt. The history of the 
dishonest and the licentious is an illustrated commentary on 
this rule. Those that hasten to be rich, by resorting to dis- 
honest means, and have accumulated property by fraud, do 
not generally long enjoy it. They seldom retain their gains, 
and if they do, how can they enjoy them haunted with a 
guilty conscience ? The general rule is, that Haman him- 
self hangs on his own gallows, and not Mordecai. It is a 
singular and significant providence that so many of the in- 
ventors of means for taking the life of their fellow men, 
should have perished by their own inventions. Gunpowder 
was the death of its inventor; Phalaris was destroyed by 
his own " brazen bull." The regent Morton who first in- 
troduced the " Maiden," a Scottish instrument of decapita- 
tion, like the inventor of the Guillotine, perished by his own 
instrument. The same is true of Brodie, who induced the 
Edinburgh magistrates to use the " new drop," the same 
still in use. Marat, the bloody-minded, died from the 
assassin's dagger. Danton and Robespierre conspired the 
death of Vergniaud and of his republican confreres, the 
noble Girondists, and then Robespierre lived only long 
enough to see the death of Danton before perishing himself 
by the same guillotine. The duke of Orleans, the infamous 
Egalite", voted for the death of Louis XVI, and not long after- 
wards was guillotined himself. The wicked are taken in their 
own net. They fall into the ditch their own hands have 
digged. u Bloody minded and deceitful men shall not live 
out half their days." Sinning is a sure paymaster, and if 
delayed, the interest compounds rapidly. It is not necessary 
to adjourn to the court of futurity to know that sin is an evil 
thing and bitter. The way of the transgressors against both 



THE JUDGMENT OF THE FOXES. 157 

natural and moral laws is now hard. The day of reckoning 
follows hard after sinful indulgence. Nature is inexorable. 
Her outraged laws must be avenged. The libertine and the 
drunkard find it to be so. Their bodies and minds soon bear 
the marks of guilt and punishment. Passions and appetites 
abused soon change the body into a prison for the soul. No 
fugitive escapes the police of God and nature. The penal- 
ties annexed by the Creator to the violation of the laws of 
our physical constitution, areas awful as they are inevitable. 
Sooner or later, at home or abroad, on land or sea, conscience 
will awake and seize the guilty; and abused nature will cry 
out, and fearful retribution will fall upon them ; or if not in 
this life, it will be all the more fearful because it falls upon 
them beyond the grave, where no repentance nor acts of 
pardon are known. But this is the day of grace. This is 
the hour of pardon. There is a great Redeemer, the Lamb 
of God, who taketh away the sin of the world. And if we 
confess our sins to God, he is faithful and just to forgive us 
our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. " The 
blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." 
14 



158 THE GIANT JUDGE. 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE JAW-BONE SLAUGHTER. 

" My life hath been a combat, 

And every thought a wound, till I am scared 
In the immortal part of me." — Manfred. 

"And Samson said unto them, Though ye have done 
this, yet will I be avenged of you, and after that I will 
cease. And he smote them hip and thigh with a great 
slaughter. And he went down and dwelt in the top of the 
rock Etam." The reader will please read the fifteenth 
chapter of Judges from the seventh verse to the end. 
Homer's heroes were never at a loss for weapons, for with 
whatever kind of arms they began to fight, they always fin- 
ished by throwing stones. The " fierce Tydides " scrupled 
not to throw a rocky fragment so great that two men in the 
degenerate days of the poet could not raise it against a foe ; 
and 

" Where to the hip the inserted thigh unites, 
Full on the bone the pointed marble lights ; 
Through both the tendons broke the rugged stone, 
And stripped the skin and crack'd the solid bone." 

Iliad, Lib. v. 375—378. 

The traveller from Thun to Grindelwald in the Bernese 
Alps, is shown to this day the huge stones with which the 
Swiss Samsons have been wont to amuse themselves. They 



THE JAW-BONE SLAUGHTER. 159 

are not so large, it is true, as the mountains which the 
giants are fabled to have plucked up and used as javelins in 
their wars ; but they are of enormous size. 

The learned give various explanations of this u hip and 
thigh " slaughter. Good critics say that the text literally 
means, that in their running away from Samson, he kicked 
them down, and then trod them to death ; and thus his leg 
or thigh was against their hip. Gesenius considers the 
phrase as a proverbial expression, meaning that he smote 
them with a great slaughter, cutting them all to pieces and 
scattering their limbs promiscuously, literally, " leg upon 
thigh ." It was certainly a most extraordinary battle. One, 
and he unarmed, contending with many thousands, and these 
thousands covered with armour and fighting with their chosen 
weapons. But it is probable the fear of the Lord fell on 
them as soon as Samson began to deal his terrific blows, so 
that in their panic they trampled down, and bruised, and 
rendered unfit for service even a greater number than were 
killed outright. Though translators differ as to the applica- 
tion of some of the words found in this passage, all agree 
in the general meaning. Proverbial phrases are always 
hard to explain, after the language in which they have their 
origin ceases to be a living tongue. 

It is much more important to notice the principle on 
which Samson acted, than to explain how he smote them. 
The history of this fight is brief. We are not told how, 
nor on what account they met. Generally Samson's move- 
ments against the Philistines were aggressive ; but here, I 
think, they attacked him. No doubt they were always ready 
for any opportunity to seize his person, or to kill him. But 
when they came upon him, he slew them " hip and thigh 
with a great slaughter/' He was not acting as a mere 
private person, even if he were entirely alone. He was the 



160 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

chief magistrate, and commissioned from heaven to execute 
divine sentence upon the Philistines. 

"And he dwelt in the top of the rock Etam." From 
1 Chron. iv. 3, 33, and 2 Chron. xi. 6, it would seem that 
Rehoboam built a fortress, or fortified a town near the rock 
Etam, which was called by the same name. This place was 
within the territory of Judah, between Tekoah and Bethle- 
hem. And according to Josephus, who calls it Hethan, it 
was fifteen miles from Jerusalem. The rock probably gave 
name to the town, and was famous for its natural strength, 
or safety as a place of retreat. David sought refuge often 
in the caves of Engedi, (Ain Jiddy). The strongholds of 
the hill country of Judea, were its caves and holes in the 
rocks. 1 Sam. xxiii. and xxiv. 

In the military operations of the French in Africa a few 
years since, a number of Arabs took shelter in a rock 
cavern, and so ably defended themselves, that they had at 
last to be destroyed by making a fire in the cave's mouth. 
In 1634 when the Sultan ordered the Bashaw of Damascus 
to make the rebel Emir Faccardine a prisoner, the latter 
shut himself up in the hollow of a great rock, with a small 
number of his officers. The Bashaw besieged him several 
months, but at last when he had made all necessary prepara- 
tions to blow up the rock, the Emir surrendered. 

From the twentieth verse — " And he judged Israel in 
the days of the Philistines twenty years/' — it is to be in- 
ferred that during all his administration the Philistines 
were troublesome. It was his mission only to begin the 
deliverance of his people. The Philistines were harassed 
and weakened, but not wholly overcome. Their yoke was 
not broken till the days of David, 

While Samson is in the cave of the rock Etam his coun- 
trymen appear to have been in a very humiliating condition. 
We have found that at a subsequent period they were 



THE JAW-BONE SLAUGHTER. 161 

inferior to trie Philistines as manufacturers, and obliged to 
go to them to get their axes and coulters sharpened. They 
appear here inferior also as warriors, and except when led 
by some champion under miraculous impulses, they were 
not able to stand before them in battle. From the confes- 
sion of the men of Judah in the eleventh verse, it is clear 
their'spirit was broken, and their heart was as water. Their 
only desire was to escape farther annoyance from the Philis* 
tines by making Samson their prisoner. They were more 
anxious to sacrifice him to their enemies, than to follow him 
in a glorious struggle to victory or death. After the evi- 
dence they had of his power to deliver them, their pusillani- 
mity seems almost incredible. 

" Why are ye come up against us V said the men of 
Judah to the Philistines. We pay our tribute punctually : 
we have committed no new offence. True, said the lordly 
Philistines ; we have no new cause of complaint against you. 
But there is a Hebrew harboured among you, or dwelling in 
your territory, who has done us a great deal of mischief. 
^ To bind Samson are we come up, to do to him, as he hath 
done to us." And then the men of Judah, three thousand 
strong, went up to the top of the rock Etam to bind Sam- 
son, to deliver him into the hands of the Philistines. Shame, 
ye men of Judah ! Why did you not rather put your giant 
judge, Jehovah's lieutenant-general, at the head of your 
forces, and strike a blow for God and liberty ? And they 
said to Samson, Do you not know that we are under the 
yoke of the Philistines, and that we are not able to shake 
it off ? Why then are you continually insulting and pro- 
voking them ? Do you not know that we must smart for 
all your provocations ? But now mark the hero's reply. He 
speaks with becoming magnanimity. He does not upbraid 
them, as he might very justly have done, for their want of hon- 
our and courage; but generously forbearing all reproach, stipu- 
14* 



162 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

lates only that they shall not lay hands on him themselves. 
I have done to them, says Samson, only as they have done 
unto me. But swear unto me, that ye will not fall upon 
me yourselves, and you may bind me, and deliver me into 
their hands. 

Samson must have been strongly posted to render it ne- 
cessary for so large a force to come to take him, or they 
must have had a most extraordinary idea of his strength 
and courage. It is a mooted point with commentators 
whether he had a body guard of tried men, or was alone. 
I should think from the nature of his office, and from this 
whole history, that he was alone, and without any warrior 
band. But I see no reason why he could not have delivered 
himself from the men of Judah, as easily as he did soon 
afterwards from the Philistines, except that he had no divine 
commission to kill his countrymen. Nor is there any evi- 
dence that he had any wish ever to imbrue his hands in 
their blood. His mission was specific. Nor can I find any 
justifiable excuse for his cousins the men of Judah. The 
Philistines were their oppressors. They were the enemies 
of their fathers and of their religion. God had raised up 
Samson to be a deliverer. Why then did they not now strike 
for their altars and their sires, their wives and their little 
ones ? Instead of this, with craven heart, they bind their 
God-sent champion, who voluntarily surrenders himself to 
them, to deliver him into the hands of the Philistines. It 
was nothing that Samson was not of their tribe. He was a 
Hebrew. It was nothing that Washington was of Virginia 
rather than of Massachusetts. He was an American. And 
we, though of different states, are all Americans. We have 
one father, one constitution, and one destiny. 

In the stipulation also that they would not fall upon him 
themselves, there is still greater shame. I am painfully 
aware that some excuses are alleged for their not rallying 



THE JAW-BONE SLAUGHTER. 163 

to his standard that are not altogether groundless. It is 
said, that Samson was not really a fit leader, because his 
intellect was weak and his character sadly inconsistent. 
Though of gigantic physical strength, his character was not 
well balanced. But was his intellect weak in the inverse 
ratio that his body was strong ? Now even if we admit that 
such is the ordinary law of mankind, it does not follow that 
it must have been true in his case. For, as has already been 
remarked, Samson does not appear to have been of gigantic 
stature, nor to have had gigantic strength, except when the 
Spirit of the Lord moved him. That he was naturally strong 
and of powerful muscle, we admit ; but his great strength 
was miraculous. It could not therefore have impaired his 
mind on the principle suggested above. It is true that 
great physical powers are sometimes possessed by those who 
have but little mental energy, and less moral character; but 
has any law of nature been discovered making a large man 
or a strong man a bad man ? If a strong body must be the 
dwelling of a weak mind, we have been erroneously taught 
— that the perfect man is a sound mind in a sound body. 
We admit that Samson's mental energy and moral sense 
strike us as dwarfish in comparison with his great bodily 
strength. Not to such a degree, however, as to excuse the 
men of Judah for not trusting in him as God's agent. 
Though a strong man, Samson was not a truly great man. 
Speaking from our starting point of his history, we should 
say his attacks upon the Philistines were badly planned, and 
the results wholly insignificant. He was a man sadly want- 
ing in self-control, mental discipline, and refinement of con- 
science. His two great passions were love and revenge, and 
both always directed towards the same people, and both 
badly managed. He seems to have done nothing towards 
the accomplishment of his great mission, except when under 
some supernatural impulse. The victories of Barak, Gideon 



164 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

and Jephthah near his own time, were of more enduring bril- 
liancy and effect. The fact is Samson was not the man 
he ought to have been. He suffered his sensuality to mar 
his otherwise greatness of character. His own countrymen 
did not rally to his standard. They had not confidence in 
him. His character was so spasmodic, he acted so by fits 
and starts, that they distrusted his prudence. And are 
they much to be blamed for withholding their confidence 
from a man who was so often the slave of his own senses ? 
A pretty face or a few tears were quite enough to unman 
him. He was a teetotaler in one way, but very intemperate 
in another. If wine did not ruin him, women did. The 
elders of Judah and the warriors of his own tribe might 
then well hesitate to risk their fortunes and lives under the 
command of one, who could repeatedly sacrifice the most 
important interests to a woman's sighs, and reveal his holy 
secret at the importunities of a paramour. 

The utter worthlessness of the two new cords is very 
strongly expressed in the original. " His bands loosed j w 
that is, melted from his hands. " They became as flax that 
was burnt with fire." That is, they were like flaxen ropes 
burnt, still retaining their coil and shape, but without 
strength ; mere cinders which, as soon as touched, fall to 
pieces. So worthless were the two new cords with which 
they bound Samson fast, when the Spirit of the Lord came 
mightily upon him. 

Listen now to the savage yells of the Philistine hosts, as 
they saw the great Hebrew bound and coming to them from 
the rock from which they were not able to fetch him. But 
their shout was his signal for action. Rending the new cords 
as burnt flax, " he found a new jaw-bone of an ass, and put 
forth his hand and took it, and slew a thousand men there- 
with. " The new of the text is applied by some not to the 
jaw-bone, but to the carcass, and rendered tabid or putrid. 



THE JAW-BONE SLAUGHTER. 165 

If so, then the idea is, that the body being in a putrid state, 
he could the more easily separate the bone from the integu- 
ments, and thus procure such a bone as would be most fit 
for execution. But if the term new is applied to the body, 
it is also true of the jaw-bone, and its being new was of im- 
portance, for it was therefore heavy and tough. It would 
bear harder blows without breaking. And never was there 
a more terrible weapon than this jaw-bone in Samson's 
hand. Never did an ass's jaw-bone do such service since 
the foundation of the world. 

The sixteenth verse is Samson's pean, or hymn of 
triumph. Though rather a silent man, and heretofore as 
modest as brave, there is nothing censurable in his singing 
after the manner of his times a stanza, in commemoration 
of his own exploits. 

" With the jaw-bone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, 
With the jaw of an ass have I slain a thousand men." 

The beauty and force of this verse can hardly be appre- 
ciated without a knowledge of the original, where we have 
a paranomasia on the identity of the terms for ass and a 
heap. The point seems to be in Samson's saying, that the 
Philistines fell under his blows with the jaw-bone of an 
ass, as tamely as if they themselves had been stupid asses — ■ 
" heaps upon heaps." 

" A thousand" here is not necessarily to be understood 
as a definite number, but denoting a great many. The 
young women, in singing David's praises when he came as 
" the conquering hero" from the killing of Goliah, said, he 
hath slain his " tens of thousands," when in fact He had 
killed but one person. He was, it is true, a giant, who was 
worth ten thousand common Philistines. To have slain so 
many with a Damascus blade would have been a prodigious 
feat; what then shall we say of its being done with the 



166 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

jaw-bone of an ass ? No doubt, fear helped him. The 
Philistines seeing Samson's cords broken, remembering 
what he had done at Askelon, and struck with terror at the 
tremendous execution of his giant arm, and expecting that 
now all the armed thousands of Judah would join him, 
and that they would all be dead men, fled, and in their 
disorderly flight many of them were killed. The victory, 
however, was not in the weapon, nor in Samson's arm, nor 
because of the Philistines' terror. It was God that nerved 
his heart and strengthened his arm. The armed men of 
Judah could have furnished Samson with a sword; but 
greater contempt was cast upon these idolators by laying 
them " heaps upon heaps " with a jaw-bone. 

" And called that place Ramath-Lehi." Twice before it 
is called Lehi by anticipation. Lehi was used for brevity's 
sake. Such contractions were common with Hebrew proper 
names. Jerusalem was called also Salem. Ramath-Lehi 
means " the hill of the jaw-bone," or " the casting away 
of the jaw-bone/' For here he cast away the jaw-bone out 
of his hand. Samson was not a good collector of relics. 
That jaw-bone would be a fortune in our day. 

The excessive thirst of which he expected to die, or to 
be obliged to surrender to the Philistines, was the natural 
consequence of excessive fatigue. Josephus thinks this 
dreadful thirst was brought on him for his pride, in not 
acknowledging God in his triumphal song. " Heaps upon 
heaps, I have slain a thousand men," said he; but not a 
word of praise to Jehovah for helping him. God was not 
recognized in the affair at all. Like Nebuchadnezzer, say- 
ing, " Is not this great Babylon that I have built ?" And 
the judgment of God fell on him from heaven till he was 
humbled to acknowledge the sovereignty of the Most High. 
Whether this is the proper explanation of Samson's thirst 



THE JAW-BONE SLAUGHTER. 167 

or not, pride is a great sin, and high looks are an abomina- 
tion to the Lord. 

" But God clave a hollow place that was in the jaw-bone, 
and there came water thereout." Here is an error in our 
translation. The fountain of water was not in the jaw- 
bone. The mistake of our translators, who are generally so 
correct, was doubtless made in this way : The same Hebrew 
word is rendered both Lehi, a proper name, and also jaw- 
hone. The mistake therefore was in confounding the name 
of the place for the instrument of the victory from which 
the place derived its name. The meaning is, God clave 
a hollow place of the rock or earth at Lehi, and a fountain 
gushed forth and continued to flow up to the time of the 
writing of the history. And in memory of the deliverance, 
the fountain was called En-hak-kore, that is, " the well of 
him that cried;" " Invocation well." Tradition still points 
out the stream that gushed from the grotto of Lehi for the 
refreshing of the Hebrew warrior. 

We close this chapter with a lesson from the shouting of 
the Philistines on the eve of their terrible slaughter. 
Their defiant shout was the knell of their complete over- 
throw. And it is still true that " a dreadful sound is in 
the ears " of the wicked : " in prosperity the destroyer 
shall come upon him." Job xv. 21. The triumphing of 
the ungodly is short. Their prosperity is their destruction. 
Had there been as many devils as there were Philis- 
tines, when the Spirit of the Lord came upon Samson, he 
would have turned their shoutings into wailings quite as 
easily. Never are the ungodly more to be pitied than 
when their prospects seem to be the brightest. Their 
fancied security is their ruin. We are told that more ves- 
sels are lost in a fair gale than in tempests. Nothing is so 
much to be feared as a sinner's apparent peace. Present 
impunity does not argue the abatement of the divine wrath. 



168 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

The delays of providence do not change the nature of sin. 
It remains intrinsically the abominable thing that God hates. 
In the very nature of things it is impossible that sin should 
any where or at any time meet with his approbation. The 
patience of God does not therefore imply any mitigation of 
the enormity of wrong-doing. It is no proof of divine in- 
difference to sin, that God does not instantly express his 
abhorrence of it, and pour out his wrath upon the offender. 
Men may kindle immediately into a transport of passion 
when insulted; but God is not a man, and therefore we are 
not consumed. He punishes sin, not from passion, but from 
principle — not to avenge himself for any injury he sustains 
from sin, but in order to maintain a righteous govern- 
ment : — such a government as is necessary for the happi- 
ness of his creatures. Such an administration is also 
agreeable to his infinite holiness. And the punishment 
of sin will only be the more severe, because of the 
aggravations of abused mercy. Delay in a human gov- 
ernment may lessen the certainty of punishment, by 
leaving room for escape, or for the loss of opportunity or 
ability for inflicting the punishment; but it is never so 
with God. " One day is with the Lord as a thousand 
years, and a thousand years as one day." There is, then, 
no statute of limitation within which process against the 
sinner must begin, or within which his cause must be tried 
and the sentence executed. Nay, though the final sentence 
against an evil work is sometimes delayed, and therefore 
the hearts of men are more fully set to evil, still the accusa- 
tion begins in most cases immediately. Conscience speaks 
out. Violated laws plead against the transgressor, and his 
ways are found to be hard. Evil doing is itself a judgment. 
And the delay to execute the sentence against evil doing is 
sometimes a part of the sentence. The delay, if not im- 
proved, is not a blessing. As in divine mercies, the rule is 



THE JAW-BONE SLAUGHTER. 169 

" grace upon grace," one favour received thankfully, draw- 
ing another ) so it is with punishments ; if not improved — 
one stroke draws down another. It were often a great 
mercy to arrest the guilty in their career of crime. There 
is something awful in being given over to blindness of mind 
and hardness of heart, to treasure up wrath against the day 
of wrath, by abusing the long-suffering, and patience, and 
goodness of God. The men of Judah were restrained from 
laying their hands upon Samson. And the Philistines, in 
shouting for joy at his surrender, were not able to touch 
him. Wicked men are often not so bad as they would be, 
if they were not restrained. They are not more cruel, sim- 
ply because they cannot be. Even in Samson's forbearance 
towards his own countrymen, there was a divine hand. Pie 
was sent against the Philistines, and would not therefore 
touch his spiritless countrymen. Oh that men would remem- 
ber that a thing is not good simply because it seems to 
prosper, but because it is according to the will of God ! 
That only is right which God commands. Sin is evil, not 
because it is punished, but because it is disobedience — it is 
something forbidden. Any delay, therefore, of sentence 
against evil doers, instead of encouraging them to continue 
in sin, should melt them to penitential sorrow. Instead of 
lulling them into security, it ought to alarm them. Nothing 
but pardon secures their safety. No length of time, nor 
flight, nor distance from the place of sinning can give any 
true relief. Nothing but pardon can save the sinner. He 
must be forgiven, or sink to endless perdition. But there 
is forgiveness with God, that he may be feared. He that 

confesseth and forsaketh his sins shall find mercy. 
15 



170 THE GIANT JUDGE. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE DREADFUL RELAPSE FROM ETAM. 

u But what availed this temperance, not complete, 

Against another object more enticing ? 

What boots it at one gate to make defence, 

And at another to let in the foe ? — Samson Agonistes. 

In the first three verses of the sixteenth chapter of Judges, 
we have a brief account of Samson's visit to G-aza, and of 
what befel him there. "Then went Samson to Glaza," a 
city about sixty miles southwest from Jerusalem, and only 
a few miles from Askelon. It was one of the oldest cities 
in the world, and is always represented in the Old Testa- 
ment as a place of considerable importance. It was once a 
city of great wealth. The present town is beautifully situ- 
ated on a hill, amidst gardens of olive and date trees. The 
houses are mostly of stone, but its inhabitants are poor. Its 
chief articles of trade are cotton and soap. 

The Hebrew term zonaJi, and its corresponding one in 
Greek, pome, which is applied to the woman of Gaza, is a 
word of uncertain signification. Our word harlot is not a 
word of doubtful meaning, but the Hebrew zonah is not 
always its equivalent. There is nothing in the history of 
Ilahab that renders it probable that she was a woman of 
bad reputation. She entertained the Hebrew spies, and 
afterwards became the wife of the Hebrew prince Salmon. 



THE DREADFUL RELAPSE FROM ETAM. 171 

Matt. i. 5. She was an innkeeper. If the term zonah, 
then, was ever applied to her in a bad sense, it must have 
belonged to a previous period of her life, for there is no evi- 
dence, nor any probability that she was an abandoned woman 
at the time the Hebrew spies entered Jericho. Naturally, 
as strangers, and on a mission of so much peril and import- 
ance, they would seek a house of private entertainment, 
such as Rabab kept. The Chaldee calls the woman that 
Samson lodged with an innkeeper. Schleusncr says the 
word may mean one that prepares and sells food, and receives 
strangers to entertain them. It must be remembered, 
however, that in those times female innkeepers trafficked with 
their personal charms at the same time that they entertained 
t revellers. In view of all the authorities within my reach, I con- 
clude our translators are correct ; and consequently this woman 
was not Samson's wife, and his conduct at Gaza is a most 
painful specimen of imperfect morality, and full of" warning. 
Truly there is no man so deep but he has some shallow 
place. 

The previous chapter is full of adventure, but the vicis- 
situdes of our hero are by no means ended, though it is 
twenty years since his victory with the jaw-bone, and his 
deliverance from dying of thirst at Lehi; still we find trou- 
ble following trouble, and no wisdom gleaned from the past. 
His last years do not bear scrutiny as well as his earlier ones. 
Considering his mission, and his relation to the Philistines, 
it is difficult to understand his motives for going into one 
of their principal cities. It can hardly be supposed that 
his meeting with the Gazite woman was anything more than 
accidental. To see her could not have been the main pur- 
pose for which he went to Gaza. As he must have been 
well known, it is passing strange that he should have trusted 
himself in one of their strongholds, and then should have 
behaved so imprudently. How could one of his stalwart 



172 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

frame — whose name was a raw-head-and-bloody-bones in 
all the village stories of Philistia — and of Nazarite hair and 
beard, have expected to escape notice ? It was scarcely 
necessary for any one from Askelon or Timnath to have 
pointed him out. At all events, it was soon known in Gaza 
that Samson was come; and, either because they did not 
know just where to find him, or being afraid to seize him 
at once, they set sentinels at the gates. They now felt sure 
that they had caged the lion, and Samson, though not where 
he should have been, was not insensible to danger. Aroused 
at midnight, and suspecting what was intended, he proceeds 
straight to the gates, and carries away the doors and posts 
upon his shoulders. The guards were either terror smitten, 
and not able to face him, or were asleep. They made no 
resistance, and he seems to have had too much contempt for 
the gate to kick it down, or too much refinement, for he lifts 
it off by mere force, and lays it on his shoulders, and car- 
ries it away to the top of a hill towards Hebron. The doors 
of Bible lands are not shaped into an arch, nor fitted into 
the wall or facing as with us. They had not our hinges. 
The door fell into sockets below, and was fastened in a pro- 
jecting bracket above. Such were the doors of Egypt and 
of the Holy Land. The sepulchres of the Nile and of Jeru- 
salem are proof; and a knowledge of this fact explains the 
anxious inquiry of the devout women coming to our Lord's 
tomb, " Who shall roll us away the stone V* That is, lift 
it out of the groove or socket. The great difficulty in open- 
ing such doors was their weight. Samson's strength must, 
therefore, have been prodigious ; since, according to the text, 
he lifted the heavy town gate, bars, brackets, beams, posts, 
and all, and carried them to the top of a distant hill. The 
text does not mean that he carried the city gate all the way 
to Hebron, which was at least twenty miles from Gaza ; lit- 



THE DREADFUL RELAPSE FROM ETAM. 173 

eraily, " to the top of a hill which looketh towards Hebron;" 
but we cannot now identify it. 

These brief historical notes are perhaps sufficient to ex 
plain the text. Let us, then, pause with two historical 
periods before us, and review our story from the top of the 
rock Etam, and from the top of the hill towards Hebron, 
where Samson put down the gate of Gaza. These two his- 
toric points comprehend twenty years of his life, and a re- 
view of them is a fearful warning to all fitful professors of 
religion, and to all backsliders. Here we see a character 
great and marvellous for supernatural exploits, spoiled, through 
a spiritual relapse, and by inconsistencies. Remarkable as 
is the heroic age of Israel's judges, Samson is certainly the 
most remarkable of them all. And after all we scarcely get 
a clear view of his inner life. So thick and heavy are the 
clouds that hang over him, that if an apostle had not given 
him a place among spiritual heroes, we should have despaired 
of him altogether. It is true, however, and in this there 
is hope, that, amid all his fearful backslidings, he never 
seems to have forgotten his commission against the Philis- 
tines. His conscience was kept faithful to this behest by 
bis own passionate hatred of them. But this is only another 
proof of God's sovereignty, which maketh the wrath of man 
to praise him, even as the appetite and relish for our food 
proves his wisdom and benevolence. It was not enough to 
make food nourish us ; God has made it agreeable to us. 
So he is pleased to make our duty and our interest in the 
long run lie in the same line. Duty is pleasure. 

While Samson dwelt in Etam, I take it there was a revi- 
val of grace in his soul. If so, it was a most critical and 
deeply interesting period in his life. Suppose we climb up 
to the top of the rock, and from his retreat look back to the 
home of his innocent youth at Zorah, and inquire how his 

mother takes all these things. Ah, his mother ! is she yet 
15* 



174 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

alive ? Then how many conflicting fears and hopes must 
have filled her mind ! Mysterious and wholly inexplicable 
events have marked her son's life. She remembers well the 
angel's bright appearance, and how he rode up towards 
heaven on the smoke of their accepted sacrifice, as if it 
had been a chariot — and how earnestly she had been com- 
manded to demean herself, and to bring up the child as one 
pre-eminently consecrated to God, and to be a deliverer of 
the chosen people. She thinks over and oyer his strange 
fancy for the woman of Timnath, and how it was not at all 
agreeable to her and her husband, that he should marry a 
Philistine, but that they submitted, hoping it was of the 
Lord. She is now, too, acquainted with the lion adventure, 
the bees, and the honey. She recollects the wedding cere- 
monies, feasting, and riddles, the divorce, and the terrible 
tragedies at Askelon and at Timnath. She wonders how 
all this is to fulfil his mission. She hopes, as only a parent 
can hope ; a thousand times does she think over the past, and 
try to read the future ; a thousand times does she interro- 
gate herself, saying, Can this be my Nazarite boy? Are 
these things realities, or visions and dreams ? Where are 
they all to end ? When will the mystery be explained ? 
Oh, how I loved that child ! What great hopes I enter- 
tained of him ! If she had not been a mother of faith and 
principle equal to her comprehension and penetration of 
judgment, she could not have sustained herself under such 
trials. 

But what of the hero himself? Think you he retired in 
disgust from the hip and thigh slaughter ? Or did he dwell 
in the top of the rock Etam for safety ? Or after the man- 
ner of the lion, having torn as many struggling victims as 
he could, did he leave them mangled and dying, and seek 
this solitary abode to gloat over his satisfied revenge ? Or 
did he go up to Etam sulky and proud, like Achilles to his 



THE DREADFUL RELAPSE FROM ETAM. 175 

tent on tlie iEgean shore ? Or like a wild Bedouin or 
Camanche, having revenged his wrongs, does he seek his 
mountain home, to scowl defiance upon his pursuers from 
his impregnable fortress? There may have been a ming- 
ling of some of these feelings in his breast, when he went 
up to Etam ; but I think his purpose was to escape for a 
time from all worldly excitements. He was weary of the 
battle. He felt his life to be a mystery. He was aston- 
ished both at his successes and his shortcomings. He saw 
the mighty power of God in his victories, and his goodness 
in his own deliverance. He wished, therefore, for a shel- 
tered place — for a quiet and safe retreat for prayer and 
meditation. Impetuous as he was — tumultuous as his life 
had been — he was not thoughtless. He has not wholly 
escaped from the influence of his mother's early lessons, 
and his father's fervent prayers. He still feels that Nazarite 
vows are upon him, and though painfully conscious of many 
sad failures in duty, he has still a deep yearning of soul 
toward God, and an earnest desire to fulfil his mission, so 
as to secure the divine approbation. There is with him 
still space for repentance, and for renewing of his vows. 
In his retirement, conscious of his many failures, restless 
thoughts, " like a deadly swarm of hornets armed," must 
have often rushed upon him. Piety, patriotism, and per- 
sonal feelings were all working together in him to fulfil his 
mission. For we must not suppose that God's Spirit is 
easily discouraged, and departs wholly from a man when he 
falls once, or even several times, into sin. There is, indeed, 
a sin unto death, a sin for which no prayer or sacrifice can 
avail, for which there is no forgiveness. There is a point 
of rebellion beyond which no pardon can be extended. 
God's Spirit does sometimes cease to strive with men. 
Ephraim may be left to his idols, because he would not 
leave them. Men may quench and grieve away the Spirit 



176 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

of God by which they might be sealed to the day of redemp- 
tion. But the general rule is, that God's long-suffering is 
as apparent as his sovereignty. He bears long with the 
children of men. The Holy Spirit does not abandon the 
sinner for a slight offence; and sometimes we see a spiritual 
resurrection after many long years of apparent death. The 
good seed sown lies long under the cold snows that have 
fallen from the mountains, but it has not perished. Wordly 
entanglements and passions have bound it up like the pitched 
mummy cloths of Egypt ; but the seed still has the living 
germ within it ; and at last it springs up in the soul, and 
blooms into eternal life, it may be, long after the . careful 
parent that sowed it in faith, and watered it with many 
tears, has entered into rest. Sometimes, also, we see the 
piety of youth reviving, and again budding, after it has 
seemed to have suffered a grievous blight, and even to have 
been uprooted for ever. 

Dear parent, after all the frustration of your hopes — 
after repeated disappointments, hope on — never despair — the 
root to this very hour that you have planted and watered, 
though it be long in sprouting, may continue alive; and yet, 
" through the scent of water it may bud." 

We shall do well, also, to remember that it is not without 
affliction that youthful piety is generally recovered after a 
relapse. The forcing heat of a furnace may be required, 
after years of decline, to make the tree " sprout again and 
send forth its boughs as a plant." It is not the mere scent 
of water, nor the ordinary shower, nor the ordinary gleams 
of sunshine, that can revive the plant and make it live in 
freshness. It is often only the furnace of affliction that 
can bring us back from backslidings. 

I apprehend Samson's experience of grace was not mirac- 
ulous. Believers in all ages are liable to temptations and 
relapses. None of them are saints upon earth. The repre- 



THE DREADFUL RELAPSE FROM ETAM. 177 

sentative or official character of the judges, prophets, and 
apostles is not to be confounded with their personal piety; 
and consequently, their experience as believers is to be con- 
sidered as a fair ensarnple for us — their experience of the 
grace of God — their penitence and faith — their hopes and 
trials — are to be considered as if they were merely believers, 
and apart from their official characters. David and Paul, as 
individuals, believed and repented, and were subject to like 
conflicts with ourselves. The same is true of Moses and 
Samson. When Moses killed the Egyptian, he fled to the 
wilderness. An undefined future lay before him. He fol- 
lowed his natural feelings, but was most graciously guided. 
There, in " meditative solitudes," he communed with God, 
and pondered over the condition of his countrymen, until 
the hour came for him to be commissioned to deliver them. 
And Samson in like manner, not finding his countrymen 
sympathizing with him — finding that they did not rally 
around him, and say, Lead us against the Philistines ; the 
Lord is with you; he has raised you up to be a judge in 
Israel, and an avenger of his people — finding that they 
were so degraded that they would not second his efforts 
for their deliverance, and somewhat, no doubt, with the 
same kind of feelings that Moses had, when he broke the 
tables of the law — he betook himself to retirement in the 
rock Etam. 

I therefore conclude that " then," in the beginning of the 
sixteenth chapter, does not mean that he went to Gaza, and 
made himself vile immediately after the great deliverance 
God had wrought for him at Lehi. Surely a considerable 
time must have elapsed after such an experience of God's 
goodness, before he could have fallen into such a quagmire. 
" Then" here seems to indicate that at or near to the end 
of his administration of twenty years, he went to Gaza, and 
soon after to Sorek. His exploit at Lehi awed the Philis- 



178 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

tines so that for some twenty years they were comparatively 
quiet. The time that intervened between Samson at Lehi 
and Samson fallen at Gaza, adds to his guilt, for he must 
now have been about forty years of age, and of a varied 
experience, and should have been more on his guard than 
to have fallen into the toils of the Gazite woman. In his 
fall, we see that besetting sins are deceitful and die hardly. 
They have many lives. When we are ready to suppose them 
dead, a slight occurrence may awaken them to a vigorous 
life. In our narrative there is an ominous silence as to how 
Samson was employed for almost twenty years. All this 
time he did nothing. It is no wonder then that his inner 
man has fallen into consumption. And as is always the case, 
in the proportion that his spiritual life grew weaker and 
weaker, his sensual grew stronger and stronger, until his 
constitutionally besetting lust broke forth again, as a fire 
that has only been smouldering, when it was supposed to 
have been extinguished. There is no truce in the war be- 
tween the flesh and the spirit. The one or the other is pre- 
vailing. If the house of David waxes stronger, then the 
house of Saul grows weaker. And the reverse is just as 
true. Samson's inner life is no doubt the exact type of 
thousands now. Many suppose when they have experienced 
some special deliverances as Samson did at Lehi, and 
have had some evidence of the grace of God, that their 
besetting sins are overcome; when in fact, they have only 
retired, and are waiting in ambush just beyond gun shot, 
till an opportunity is presented for them to return and take 
the fort by storm, as Samson's did with him at Gaza. It 
were well to learn, from Samson's sad experience, to be on 
our guard against besetting sins, especially of the grosser 
kind. And there is the more need for watchfulness against 
the lusts of the flesh, because they are favoured in their 



THE DREADFUL RELAPSE FROM ETAM. 179 

approaches to the citadel of the heart and conscience by 
many less constitutional sins, or sins less suspected of being 
so flagrant and vile, which, however, when indulged pre- 
pare the way for their return, and for their violent onset. 
In the presence of professed friends, the excitement of 
good feeling, your own self-confidence, a sense of security, 
and obscuration of divine holiness, a faint view of God's 
law, and the strong pleadings of nature within — then is 
the moment when constitutional sinful propensities arouse 
themselves with a fearfully increased fierceness. And it is 
just in this manner, and by such slow approaches, and by such 
carefully prepared intrenchments, the heart is taken. Let 
all who fancy themselves secure, remember the dreadful 
warning of Peter — that " if, after having escaped the pol- 
lutions of the world, through the knowledge of the Lord 
and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein 
and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the 
beginning." 

The triumphing of Samson's baser passions at Gaza and 
Sorek were most certainly preceded by a decaying, con- 
sumptive state of his religious character. His piety had 
almost withered away before he went to Gaza. And it is 
always thus. One sin leads the way to another. A decay 
of spiritual life allows greater liberty to the lusts of the 
flesh. Indolence, gluttony, worldliness, drunkenness, and 
the pampering of any of the lusts of the flesh are all of 
kin. They are links in the same hellward dragging chain. 
The entanglement is not perfected all at once. Absence 
from the prayer meeting follows the neglect of closet prayer. 
And a growing neglect of divine worship is followed by a 
want of relish for God's word, and by a listlessness or want 
of interest in religious matters, and by a greater degree of 
pleasure in worldly things ; and now the way is fully pre- 



180 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

pared for carnal nature to rise in rebellion, and with a fiercer 
frenzy, because of its long apparent quiescence or imprison- 
ment, seize on the spoils. The course of the backslider is 
fearfully rapid and agonizing in the end. Please read Eph. 
vi. 10 — 18; and Col. iii. 1 — 15. "Let Mm that thinketh 
he standeih take heed lest he fall " 



THE FATAL SLEEP IN DELILAIl's LAP. 181 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE FATAL SLEEP IN DELILAH'S LAP. 

"At length to lay my head and hallow'd pledge 
Of all my strength in the lascivious lap 
Of a deceitful concubine, who shore me 
Like a tame wether, all my precious fleeces, 
Then turn'd me out, ridiculous, despoiPd, 
Shaven, and disarm'd among mine enemies." 

Samson's Confession. 

From the fourth and following verses of the sixteenth 
chapter, we have Samson's next adventure. It is with a 
celebrated beauty of great historic interest, belonging to 
the vale of Sorek, which probably took its name from the 
brook that ran through it and fell into the sea near Askelon. 
This vale was rich and populous, and probably occupied by 
the best class of the Philistines. The myrtle, the vine, 
acacia, oleander, olive, pomegranate, and orange were fami- 
liar to the eyes of the beautiful Delilah. Milton ignores 
the woman of Gaza altogether, nor is there any reason to 
believe she was Samson's wife. But in all his love affairs 
there is a singular disregard for the daughters of his own 
people.* And this may be one reason why his " course of 

*"La foiblesse du coeur de Samson, dans toute cette histoire, est 
encore plus etonnante que la force de son corps." — " The weakness of 
Samson's heart, in all this history, is still more surprising than the 
■trengtb of his body." — Calmet. 
16 



182 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

love " never ran smoothly. " He always matched impro- 
perly, and he was cursed in all his matches." His conduct 
now, however, is the more mysterious, because he is no 
longer the young lover, " sighing like a furnace •" but of 
mature years and experience — the same man who went 
down to Timnath some twenty years ago, as strong in mus- 
cle, but weaker in character. And though his enemies 
could not find out what constituted his great strength, they 
were not slow in discovering where his weakness lay; and 
as ordinary measures had not enabled them to get the secret 
of his strength, they resolved to overreach him through 
his fondness for a woman of their own nation. 

Of Delilah's father and mother, education and previous 
character, we know nothing. And I believe she is never 
mentioned in the Scriptures after her connection with Sam- 
son. We do not know what became of her. The name 
Delilah is believed to signify " humiliation — bringing down 
to shame — that which humbles and debases." We are not 
able, however, to explain how her parents happened to give 
her at birth a name so truly significant and prophetic of the 
events of her life, that give her a place in the world's his- 
tory. Were they under a prophetic impulse in giving a 
name to their child ? We are only sure of the historic 
fact. The names of the Bible are all, probably, descriptive 
or significant, as oriental names are still, and as all names 
were originally. Some have doubted whether Delilah was 
of Philistine parentage. Hebrew tradition and Josephus, 
however, assert that she was, and this I think the text 
implies. Some doubt, also, whether she was ever Sam- 
son's wife, or only his. concubine. Milton considers her 
his second married wife, which seems to me most likely. 
It is true, however, she is nowhere called his wife ; and if 
she were his wife, it may be pertinently asked, why did he 
not take her home to his own house ? Though his married 



THE FATAL SLEEP IN DELILAH'S LAP. 183 

wife, as I think, she was chosen from wrong motives or 
upon corrupt principles. His choice was made in violent 
passion, rather than from prudence or out of regard to the 
religion of his fathers. As a Philistine, she belonged to a 
wicked and idolatrous people. 

" The lords of the Philistines " were the chiefs of their 
five principalities : Gaza, Gath, Askelon, Ashdod, and 
Ekron. And though these principalities were considered 
in most respects sovereign and independent, yet in their 
wars against the Israelites they were generally, perhaps 
always, united. At this time they were confederate against 
the Hebrew champion, and diligently watching for an op- 
portunity to get an advantage over him. As soon, there- 
fore, as they heard that Samson had formed an alliance 
with Delilah, they offered her a large bribe if she would 
get from him the secret of his strength. Each chief pro- 
mised to give her eleven hundred pieces of silver, if she 
succeeded. Five thousand five hundred pieces of silver 
was a considerable sum of money in those days. If these 
pieces, as it is probable, were shekels of silver, the sum was 
about three thousand dollars. 

The heathen are all superstitious. Even the Greeks and 
Romans, with all their enlightenment in philosophy and in 
the arts and sciences, were the slaves of terrible supersti- 
tions. The people of the East generally are given to 
charms, incantations, signs, and omens. As Samson did not 
owe his extraordinary strength to the size of his body, the 
Philistine lords seem to have conjectured that it must lie 
in some amulet or charm, and that the supernatural power 
he wielded depended on his continued possession of some 
magical ring or word ; and that if they could in any way 
get this secret from him, then they could easily make him 
their prisoner and put him to death. 

" And Delilah said unto Samson, Tell me, I pray thee, 



184 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

wherein thy great strength lieth, and wherewith thou 
niightest be bound to afflict thee? And Samson said 
unto her, If they bind me with seven green withs, that 
were never dried, then shall I be weak, and be as another 
man." 

I have nothing to say in defence of Samson's lying. It 
seems to me, after all that commentators have said in ex- 
plaining the text so as to excuse at least in part his trifling 
with Delilah, that she was correct in saying to him that he 
told her lies. Yes, lies is the word, neither white, nor little, 
nor over-the-shoulder ; but in honest English lies. Nor 
need I explain how his soul was vexed unto death, for he 
is neither the first nor the last man whose soul has been 
vexed to death by an ungodly woman. Let us then at 
once attend to the enticement, the repeated temptation, the 
struggling of the strong man in the toils of an artful woman, 
and the success of the beguilement. 

The Philistine lords did not profess to wish to kill Sam- 
son, but only " to bind him to afflict him ;" that is, accord- 
ing to the Hebrew, " to humble him, to bring him low." 
6i Entice him," said they, " and see wherein his great strength 
lieth ;" literally, " for what cause his strength is so great." 
Much as Delilah may have been to blame, I should think 
she did not intend to do all she did. She did not expect 
consequences to be what they really were. She did not see 
the ultimate purpose of her seducers. Nor did she know 
that Samson would in fact be so powerless, and that they 
would tear out his eyes — those very eyes that gazed upon 
her in such rapturous love — and load him with chains, and 
carry him off to grind in the mills of Gaza. 

The best excuse I can make for Delilah is, that out of 
curiosity — the very same thing that is thought to have 
wrought such mischief with our first mother — she desired 
to experiment with her husband, and find out the secret of 



THE FATAL SLEEP IN DELILAIl's LAP. 185 

his extraordinary strength, but expecting every time that he 
would be able to extricate himself from all difficulty — not 
believing it possible that his enemies could finally and fatally 
prevail against him. 

"If they bind me," said Samson, "with seven green 
withs that were newly dried." Withs, according to the 
Hebrew here, may have been any kind of tough, pliable 
wood, twisted into ropes. The Septuagint says they were 
cords made of rawhide, and so the Vulgate, nerviceis fwu- 
hus. It is probable the first cords or ropes used were thongs 
cut from rawhide, twisted and dried. Tugs are extensively 
used even in our day, instead of iron chains, for drawing 
the plow, cart, harrow, and wagon in Africa, and many other 
parts of the world. I have seen ropes made of the fibres 
of the bog-wood, in Ireland, and of young hickories, hazels, 
or osiers, in our Southern and Western States. In India, 
wild buffaloes and elephants when first caught are bound 
with green withs. When green they are exceedingly strong, 
but when dried they are brittle and good for nothing. New 
ropes, withs, and the sacred number, seven, seem all to have 
been suggested by his knowledge of their superstitious ideas 
of a charm or spell, for such things were used in heathen 
incantations. The monuments show that flax was used 
long before this time in Egypt, and ropes of hemp may also 
have been in use ; but those made of fibres of trees, or of 
switches, were not and are not still superseded. 

u Now there were men lying in wait, abiding with her in 

the chamber/' or rather hidden in the inner apartment, not 

present in the same room, who rushed out upon him ; " but 

Samson broke the withs as a thread of tow is broken when 

it toucheth the fire. So his strength was not known. ,; The 

experiment with the new ropes resulted as the one with the 

new withs had done. But still Delilah persists, and he tells 

her to weave the seven locks of his head with the web. 
16* 



186 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

Biblical scholars tell us this thirteenth verse ends abruptly, 
that it should be as the Septuagint has it, closing with di- 
rections how to fasten his hair, just as she accordingly 
does, as we are told in the next verse. This is certainly 
the sense. " The seven locks" probably means the seven 
divisions into which his hair was platted. As a Nazarite 
he was obliged to wear his hair long, and as a matter of 
comfort, it was necessary to weave it into locks, or dis- 
tinct folds, and the number seven being sacred, it was adopt- 
ed. It was equivalent to all his hair. " And she fastened 
it," that is, his hair in its seven-fold form, to the loom, 
winding it about the yard-beam, as is plain from the verses 
following. 

This third experiment was a much more dangerous one 
than the preceding; it approached so near to his awful 
secret that we begin to tremble for him. He is now begin- 
ning to handle sharp-edged tools. The circle is growing 
smaller and smaller with fearful rapidity. He tells his en- 
chantress, if his long locks were woven around the beam of 
the loom, he would be as another man. And she to make 
the experiment more sure, fastened the web to the floor or wall 
with a pin. But as he was still possessed of the mark of 
his covenant with Jehovah, so the Philistines could not pre- 
vail against him. He dragged the whole loom, web, pin, 
beam, and all by his hair. 

But does Samson now arouse himself, and say, I have 
trifled long enough ; away, fair tempter, I cannot stay any 
longer on this dangerous ground ; I cannot sin against God, 
and do so wicked a thing as to betray my secret? Alas ! 
the woman's importunities prevail. " He told her all that 
was in his heart." So great was his infatuation that, like 
the moth, he approached nearer and nearer to the flame, 
until he was consumed by it. He told her of his wondrous 
birth, and eventful life, and divine deliverances; that he 



THE FATAL SLEEP IN DELILAIl's LAP. 187 

was a Nazarite, and that the preservation of his long hair 
was a test of his obedience, and a token of the divine pre- 
sence to aid him whenever opportunity presented for execu- 
ting justice upon her countrymen ; and that if his hair 
were shaven he would be as another man, because by such 
a sin he would deprive himself of the divine power that 
was vouchsafed to him as long as he was faithful to his 
vows. She saw, by his earnest tone, and subdued and sin- 
cere manner, that he was no longer amusing her, but had 
actually told her the secret of his strength. But instead 
of being favourably impressed by this mark of his confidence, 
or moved from her satanic purpose of pressing her experi- 
ments by this proof of his honesty, and of his ardent love 
for her, she immediately took measures to betray him. 
Accordingly she makes such positive assurances to the Phil- 
istine lords that they are not to be trifled with this time, 
that they hurry up to Sorek with the money in hand. And 
she tells them that he has told her at last the secret of his 
heart, and they counted out the money. And sure enough, 
this time her plan succeeds, as I would fain hope even be- 
yond her own wishes. 

" And she made him sleep upon her knees. " At noon, 
in the East, it is very hot, and the inhabitants are in the 
habit of taking a siesta. This short repose is usually taken 
by a son in the lap of his mother, or by a husband in the 
lap of his wife. The climate and fixtures of their domes- 
tic establishments are suited for such a luxury. The woman 
sits on a divan, or mat, or carpet, crosslegged, and the man 
lays himself down with his head in her lap, " and she gently 
taps, strokes, sings, and soothes him to sleep. " 

" And she called for a man, and caused him to shave off 
the seven locks of his head." Most, if not all, the pictures 
I have ever seen of Samson in Delilah's lap, represent her 
with a pair of scissors, cutting off his hair with her own 



188 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

hands. This is altogether wrong. It may well be doubted 
whether scissors were then in use. It is, however, well 
known that barbers by profession are nearly as old as the 
creation. They are found on the oldest monuments of the 
Nile ; and the monuments of the Tigris and Euphrates, as 
well as of Egypt, prove that wig wearing was very common 
in a very remote antiquity. The Arabian Nights and Ori- 
ental tales speak of barbers as belonging to an ancient and 
important profession. The embalming surgeon of Egypt 
seems to have been also a common barber. 

"While Samson sleeps, the barber takes off his sacred 
locks. So skilful were the barbers of the East that they 
are said to have been able to take off a man's beard or hair 
without awaking him, nay, rather to have lulled him to 
sweeter sleep by the operation. 

I do not understand Samson to say, in the seventeenth 
verse, that his great strength existed essentially in his hair. 
All Nazarites had long hair, but they did not all possess 
superhuman strength, nor strength in proportion as their 
hair was long. Samson is not, therefore, to be understood 
as saying that his hair was essentially his strength, or that 
his strength was natural, but that his hair was the mark of 
his Nazarite relation to God, whose Spirit imparted to him 
his miraculous strength. He meant that his long hair was 
a proof of his obedience, and of his covenant with God, 
from whom he derived and would always derive strength so 
long as he was obedient to him. And consequently, if he 
were disobedient, and his hair were shaven, then the 
Nazarite vow that consecrated him to God would be broken, 
and God would abandon him, and he would become weak 
as another man. The secret was now out, and the plot was 
speedily executed. " And she began to afflict him, and his 
strength went from him." This she did herself, before she 
called for the Philistines, to see whether he were really 



THE FATAL SLEEP IN DELILAH'S LAP. 189 

weak now as another man. And though she is now con- 
vinced that he has lost his strength, she still probably 
thought it was only for a little time, and that in actual ex- 
tremity he would recover it again. 

How deep must have been Samson's mortification ! How 
terrible his agony and disappointment, to find that he had 
bruken his vows, and was indeed forsaken of God ! At 
first he was not conscious of his awful fall. u He awoke 
out of his sleep, and said, I will go out as at other times 
before, and shake myself. And he wist not that the Lord 
was departed from him. But the Philistines took him and 
put out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza, and bound 
him with fetters of brass; and he did grind in the prison 
house." His sleeping was accursed, and more accursed his 
waking. " He that sleeps in sin must look to wake in loss 
and weakness."* There may be those who think that Sam- 
son could not have been so easily overcome. It is wonder- 
ful that, after he had been three times tried, and had found 
each time that the Philistines were lying in wait, within 
call, to come upon him, he allowed Delilah to dally with 
him a fourth time, and then told her the real secret 
of all his strength. His infatuation was most extraordi- 
nary ; but inordinate and unlawful attachments of this kind 
have generally been found to be at the bottom of the most 
horrid and revolting deeds in the chronicles of strong men. 
Kemember David, and beware of the weakness of human 
nature. 

But it is not to be supposed that we have here a full 
account of all the interviews or conversations that passed 
between Samson and Delilah. He was a judge in Israel, 
and however ardent his passions may have been, it is not at 
all likely that he surrendered without a struggle. We know 

• Bishop Hall. 



190 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

that she had to apply all her arts repeatedly. She watched 
for moments most favourable to her designs. She found 
out by what arts of soft dalliance she could obtain the 
greatest influence over him. She resorted to every means 
of lulling his suspicions. He seems not to have known of 
the bribe, nor at first of her intercourse with his national 
enemies. And even after he found that she had the Philis- 
tines lying in wait to rush upon him, as soon as she fancied 
he had told her his secret, he was easily persuaded that it 
was all in jest. Perhaps she flattered him, and told him 
she loved to see him displaying his great strength, and 
making sport of the Philistines. Nor did he fall in a 
moment, nor in an hour. Doubtless several days, it may 
be weeks or months, intervened; time enough for his resent- 
ment to cool, or for removing his suspicions, and for her to 
ply all her arts of persuasion and blandishment. Once and 
again he visits Sorek, and every time she gains some new 
point of influence over him. She conducts the siege with 
admirable skill. Simple minded and confiding as he was 
strong, he is at last surprised and taken. We have no re- 
cord of his internal conflict, but the battle in his great soul 
must have been a terrific struggle before he yielded. There 
seems to have been less prudence, and not so much firmness 
as he displayed with his first wife. He gave his Timnite 
bride at first a flat refusal when she attempted to get his 
secret. But he had not courage to give a direct and empha- 
tic No to Delilah at all. She plied her arts, and succeeded 
in lulling his suspicions, until he told her all his heart, and 
said, " I have been a Nazarite unto God from my mother's 
womb." 

How are the mighty fallen ! What a confession to be 
made in the lap of Delilah ! What a sad commentary 
upon his education and youthful hopes ! Why did not 
the very utterance of such words arouse him to a sense 



THE FATAL SLEEP IN DELILAIl's LAP. 191 

of his shame ? Why did he not flee as for his life ? 
Strange that he was so infatuated that he did not even 
now, at this late hour, break away at all hazards from the 
enchantress ! But it is just so now. He that departs from 
God hardens his heart and sears his conscience, and soon 
falls into the fatal habit of disregarding the warnings of 
his conscience and of God's word. To dally with Delilah 
is fatal. The only safety is flight. 



192 THE GIANT JUDGE. 



CHAPTER XV. 

A GRIST FROM THE PRISON MILL OP GAZA. 

" In that tale I find 
The furrows of long thought, and dried-up tears, 
Which ebbing, leave a sterile track behind, 
O'er which all heavily the journeying years 
Plod the last sands of life — where not a flower appears." 

Ghilde Harold, 

When Josephus says Samson was a prophet, he means 
that he was raised up by a particular providence, and set 
apart to God's service as a Nazarite, and had an extraordi- 
nary commission from God for avenging his people : and 
not that he had any prophetic revelations. Such revela- 
tions were not made by him ; nevertheless he was a great 
teacher. In him we see the workings of human nature, and 
the deep strugglings of higher principles, both in prosperity 
and adversity. But he has fallen — sadly fallen through the 
fascinations of an ungodly, unprincipled woman. The 
tempest that had so often before nearly made shipwreck of 
our giant judge, has at last stranded him on the beach. 
And scarcely was Christendom more convulsed at the fall 
of Sebastopol, than was all Philistia at the capture of Sam- 
son. 

" The Philistines took him, and put out his eyes, and brought 
him down to Gaza, and bound him with fetters of brass; 
and he did grind in the prison-house." 



A GRIST FROM THE PRISON MILL OF GAZA. 193 

Delilah's fourth experiment succeeded, perhaps, even 
beyond her expectations ; and when the Lord departed from 
Samson, instead of being able to carry away the doors of 
Gaza on his shoulders, he is now led thither a helpless cap- 
tive — blind and in chains. How sad the change ! But more 
humiliating far the cause of this change, than the ignominy 
of his external sufferings. Now the very arms that once 
wielded the new jaw-bone with such terrible effect, and 
rent asunder the new cords and withs as burnt tow, are 
bound hard and fast in fetters of brass. An insulting guard 
of uncircumcised Dagon-worshippers taunt and goad him 
along the weary road down to Gaza : Aha ! this is the way 
you carry off our doors from the city gate, is it? Don't 
you wish you could find another jaw-bone ? Cowardly 
wretches \ but yesterday ten thousand of you could not 
stand before him, nor could you now, had he only been faith- 
ful to his God ! But such is always the way of trans- 
gression — such are always the consequences of departing 
from the living God. Those sacred locks that had been 
tenderly cherished by his mother, and hitherto so much 
cared for by himself, are left in Sorek, the spoils and the 
sport of a faithless woman and her accomplices in crime. 
His gait and bearing are not now as of yore. That head, 
so long adorned with glossy locks, sealing his birth-conse- 
cration to Jehovah, is now bald and exposed to a Syrian sun. 
His steps, once so steady and so firm, are now feeble and 
tripping. The eyes, that once gazed upon the heavens in 
rapt devotion, and were wont to speak flames of love, or 
shoot forth the fire of anger, are now rayless, never again 
to kindle with the light of the sun. Newly blind, he hob- 
bles along, not having yet learned how to walk without his 
eyes. How different his return, from his defiant departure 
from the same city with its doors upon his shoulders ! 

" And the Philistines put out his eyes." We are told 
17 



194 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

that in Persia, it is the practice of the king to punish a 
rebellious city by exacting so many pounds of eyes, and that 
in fulfilling this order, his executioners go and " scoop out 
from every one they meet, till they have the weight required/' 
Learned authors agree in saying that the common way of 
putting out the eyes among the Greeks and Asiatics, was 
" by drawing or holding a red-hot iron before them." This 
awful custom is still known in Asia and Africa. Sometimes, 
but not usually, the eyes were cut out, and sometimes dug 
out with a dagger and carried to the king in a basin, after 
the manner of John the Baptist's head to Herodias' daugh- 
ter. The evidence is full that such acts of cruelty were 
common in ancient times. And sometimes, history informs 
us, the executioners ordered to destroy the eyes of prisoners 
were so careless that the prisoners lost their lives under 
the operation. M. Bonomi, in his " Nineveh and its Pal- 
aces/' (p. 169,) furnishes us with a drawing from Khorsa- 
bad, that illustrates this savage barbarity. The engraving 
is copied from the sculpture on the chamber of the palace 
of the king. The central figure is the king himself, and 
before him are three prisoners, the foremost one on his 
knees in a most beseeching attitude, and the other two stand- 
ing behind in humble posture, begging for mercy. The 
king is thrusting the point of his spear into one of the eyes 
of the suppliant before him, while with his left hand 
he holds the ends of cords fastened to the upper lips of the 
other captives, who are manacled and fettered, and standing 
behind the one whose eyes are about to be put out. The 
king is attended also by his cup-bearer and officers of state, 
bearing sceptres ; by a eunuch and the chief governor, or 
Rah Signeen. Who knows but that this is the history of 
king Zedekiah from 2 Kings illustrated ? 

u And bound him with fetters of brass." The Philistines 
were so terribly afraid of Samson, that they not only put 



A GRIST FROM THE PRISON MILL OF GAZA. 195 

out his eyes, but bound him. Though his arms were now 
as feeble as any other man's, yet his bodily presence was 
to them as king Edward's skin and armour were to the 
border clans. They were determined that if by any means 
his strength should return to him, so that he should break 
the fetters with which he was bound, yet he should not 
have eyes to see how to use it. The u brass" of the text is 
copper , for as yet the factitious metal known to us as brass 
was not in use. We have ample proof, however, of the use 
of copper in remote ages for many purposes to which iron 
is now applied. Ancient monuments show conclusively 
that chains, fetters, instruments for labour and for cooking, 
knives, axes, and vases, dishes, and dice boxes, hammers, 
chisels, adzes, and hatchets, daggers, rings, prisoners' fet- 
ters, and strong chains were all used by the ancients. Such 
articles, and a bowl of bitumen overlaid with copper and a 
piece of lead, have been brought from the ruins of the 
Tigris and Euphrates, and are now in the British Museum. 
Those brought from Tel Sifx in ancient Babylon by Mr. 
Loftus,* seem to have been the stock in trade of a copper- 
smith, whose forge was near by. Copper was used in an- 
cient Egypt, where the art of hardening the points of their 
copper instruments seems to have been more perfectly known 
than it is in the present day. The obelisks of the Nile are 
covered with hieroglyphics, and yet they are so hard, that 
it is with great difficulty any inscriptions can be cut on them 
with our tools. The cutting of the French inscriptions on 
the obelisk set up by Louis Philippe in the Place de la 
Concorde, is in proof of this. We find the Israelites using 
copper abundantly in building the tabernacle. Though iron 
was not wholly unknown to the ancients, it was not much 
used. It will be readily remembered, however, that the 

• Loftus's Travels and Researches in Babylonia and Susiana, p. 269. 
See also Layard's Nineveh— passim. 



196 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

Bible speaks in several places of chains and fetters of brass 
(copper.) See, particularly, Psalms xlix. 8 ; 2 Kings xxv. 
7, and the history of Manasseh and Hezekiah. Mr. Layard 
thinks the fetters of the prisoners at Nineveh were of iron, 
but it is generally conceded that the monuments prove that 
those of Egyptian prisoners were of copper. Mr. Loftus 
thinks that the Chaldeans were a colony from Egypt. The 
best authorities, as we have seen, agree that the Philistines 
were of Egyptian origin. It were a deeply interesting sub- 
ject, but one that does not come within my present purpose, 
to trace out from ancient history and the readings of recent 
discoveries, the striking similarities that exist between the 
ancient Egyptians, Assyrians, and Philistines. Modern 
researches and discoveries all tend to corroborate the unity 
of the human races, and their dispersion from a common 
cradle, according to the tenth and eleventh chapters of Gen- 
esis. 

I think this is the first time the Bible speaks of putting 
out any one's eyes ; and the first time that we have men- 
tion made of a prison since the record of Pharaoh's round 
house, in the history of Joseph. The sculptured records 
of the East prove, however, the great antiquity of the 
usages referred to in the text. The ancients were in the 
habit of keeping some of their prisoners to grace a great 
feast or triumphal procession, and in the mean time of heap- 
ing upon them every possible insult and cruelty that life 
could bear. 

It is well known that the Indians of America delight 
in such cruelties. They inflict wounds on their prisoners, 
and treat them in the most cruel manner, that they may 
see how much courage they have, and enjoy their writhings 
of pain. Sometimes the prisoners are made to run the 
gauntlet, or to dance and sing through the most exquisite 



A GRIST FROM TIIE PRISON MILL OF GAZA. 197 



sufferings from wounds or from the slowly consuming flames, 
until death releases them. 










. 







In the mean time Samson is not only bound, but made 
to grind at the mills as a slave, and as a slave of the state. 
His condition was in every respect a most painfully aggra- 
vated one — much more so than if he had been reduced to 
servitude in a private family, whose self-interest, if no 
higher motives were found, would prompt them to mild 
treatment. Here is the original of imprisonment at hard 
17* 



198 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

labour. I presume this is the first instance of penitentiary 
labour on record, and I think it is the only instance in the 
Bible of imprisonment and hard labour united. The orien- 
tal custom with prisoners was either a summary execution, 
when not reserved for a triumph, or condemnation to perpe- 
tual servitude. From Lam. v. 11, and Isa. xlvii. 2, it ap- 
pears that the Chaldeans made such of their Hebrew cap- 
tives as they wished especially to degrade, to grind in the 
mill. Herodotus says that the Scythians put out the eyes 
of all their prisoners of war, and made them milkers of 
their cows. Probably they considered blind slaves better 
for milking, and for grinding, somewhat as we put a blind 
horse, or a blind-folded one to turn the wheel in sawing 
wood, and for the performance of like rotary work. 

In Zanzibar and Eastern Africa, as well as in portions 
of Asia and on many of the islands of the sea, this kind 
of primitive mill and the mortar are the only instruments 
in use for grinding. The Cassada root, ground or pounded, 
is the staple food of the poorer classes. The mill consists 

of two flat circular stones, 
some two feet in diameter. 
" The one is convex, having a 
■ hole through which the grain 
passes, and is supported upon 
the other, which is concave, by 
a firm peg. To the upper stone is affixed a handle, by 
which it is kept revolving by two women sitting on opposite 
sides of the mill." (Osgood's Notes, p. 26.) 

So necessary was the mill considered in a family, that ac- 
cording to the law of Moses, " no man shall take the nether 
or the upper millstone to pledge, for he taketh a man's life 
to pledge," That is, his life and that of his family depended 
on his having a mill by which to prepare their bread. The 
same law substantially prevails among us. The constable 




A GRIST FROM THE PRISON MILL OF GAZA. 1&9 

cannot take by a suit at law the miner's tools, the farmer's 
plough, nor the mechanic's saw and chisel. 

The prophet expressed the utter desolation of Babylon 
by saying : " The sound of the millstone shall be heard no 
more at all." That is, it shall become a mass of ruins. 
The means of subsistence shall wholly cease. This pro- 
phecy has been literally fulfilled. All that is now to be 
seen in the marshes and by " the standing pools " of Baby- 
lon, are ruins, a solitary traveller and a few flitting, robbing 
Bedouins. 

Mills are probably as old as looms, and both go back to 
remotest times. Hand-mills resembling those of the most 
ancient monuments are still in use in China, Africa, and the 
East generally. Grain was first prepared for bread probably 
by boiling it and then bruising it in a mortar. The mor- 
tar and pestle are still in use among the aborigines of this 
continent for pounding or grinding acorns and grain into 
meal. And the opinion prevails among not a few, that 
meal obtained in this way is sweeter than that ground in 
our common mills. The Anglo-Saxons of an early period 
used the same kind of mills that are found in the East, and 
this may be another proof of what Dr. Pritchard affirms in 
a recent work, the Asiatic origin of the Celts. The first 
mills were probably turned by women, slaves, and prisoners, 
and in process of time by oxen and donkeys, and then by 
wind and water, and now by steam. Several allusions are 
made in the Bible to women grinding at the mill, which are 
explained in the custom just described. The Philistines 
designed, by making Samson grind at the mill, to show their 
vindictive contempt for him. In making him grind with 
women and slaves for their sport, they also made him work 
for us. For his eventful history helps us to understand 
somewhat more fully the awful verities of God, and the 
sublime teachings of a world to come. Blind and grinding 



200 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

at the mill — a close prisoner and in terrible suffering, he is 
entitled to our deepest sympathies. His condition is a 
deeply impressive illustration that the Scriptures of God 
speak truth in warning us that if we sow to the flesh, we 
shall of the flesh reap corruption — a harvest of sorrow. 
Every step of Samson's life warns us of snares in which 
our own feet may be taken. Along the line of his dark 
passage from a religious education and early piety, till we 
find him 

" Eyeless in Gaza, at the mill with slaves !" 

a prisoner in the temple of the heathen fish-god, there are 
many points where we should ruminate; and as we look 
through the window upon his gloomy cell, and hear the 
shouts of derision in the streets, our gratitude should be 
excited for the preventing grace of God that has made us 
to differ. In following him, there are many sharp turns and 
dark windings and slippery places, where we have great 
need of the light of the sanctuary to keep our own feet 
from falling. 

I. In Samson's history we see the wonderful forbearance 
of God, notwithstanding his misuse of great mercies and 
of supernatural strength. Though he has often fallen, and 
his life thus far sadly disappoints us, still he was not power- 
less till he gave up the secret of his strength. Strange, 
that at his time of life, when the fires of youth should at 
least have so far cooled down as to be under the control of 
reason, he should go from Gaza to Sorek. But he was not 
an exception to the rule, that " because sentence against an 
evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of 
the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil." With 
Samson, as with men now, success made him confident and 
careless in sinning. Continued prosperity in evil-doing is 
frequently assumed to be a tenure in perpetuity of the 



A GRIST FROM THE PRISON MILL OF GAZA. 201 

blessings which are thus abused; whereas such abuses 
enhance every moment the guilt that will be all the more 
terrible in its results because the judgment has been delayed. 
Samson's consecration to God before his birth ; his birth 
twice heralded by an angel ; his early and most careful 
religious training; the prayers, sacrifices, and pious hopes 
of his godly parents ; and God's grace given to him in his 
youth, and all the miraculous strength he had received — all 
his experience of divine power and goodness through an 
extraordinary life, only enhanced his guilt, and gave 
poignancy to his grief as we see him at Gaza. The light 
of nature accuses all men of sin, so that they are without 
excuse; but Samson's sins were the more aggravated because 
they were committed after repeated warnings and singular 
deliverances. He sinned against the seventh command- 
ment, and under the historic light of signal vengeance upon 
the nations of old for their uncleanness. He could not 
have been ignorant that it was for licentiousness the world 
was destroyed by a flood, and the Canaanites accursed, and 
twenty-three thousand of the children of his own people 
had been slain, leaving their bones to bleach on the sand on 
their way up from Egypt. But if we see the wonderful 
forbearance of God in Samson's history — what shall we say 
of the divine patience in our own ? Except the power to 
perform miracles, we have as much as he had to enhance 
our responsibilities. The greater the degree of gospel light 
that shines on us, the more is our obligation increased, and 
our guilt augmented, if we are disobedient. Instead of 
Nazaritish vows, we are under solemn baptismal obligations, 
which extend over our whole term of life. Samson's long 
hair was the sign or test of his obedience. So is our bap- 
tism. Dear reader, are you sure you are not guilty of wip- 
ing away the sacred drops by which you were publicly dedi- 
cated to God, as Samson was shorn of his locks by disclos- 



202 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

ing the secret of his strength ? Have you not at the age 
of maturity refused to confirm the confession of faith and 
vows made in your behalf, at your baptism, by your parents ? 
And are none of you still wearing the outward badge of 
your covenant with God, who are living in known sin? 
Do you not remember that as baptized persons you are 
under solemn pledges " to crucify the flesh with its affec- 
tions and lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly 
in this present evil world V } 

II. Samson lost his great strength in an unconscious 
manner. His frame was not convulsed when the barber 
removed his locks. No sobs revealed the fact that he had 
become as another man. He slept on just as other men 
sleep, but when he awoke, he is as other men, saving that 
he is now more degraded. When the Philistines come 
upon him, he finds himself really as weak as other men, and 
is soon overpowered. 

" Even as a dove, whose wings are clipped for flying 
Flutters her idle stumps, and still relying 
Upon her wonted refuge, strives in vain 
To quit her life from danger, and attain 
The freedom of her air-dividing plumes ; 
She struggles often, and she oft presumes 
To take the sanctuary of the open fields ; 
But, finding that her hopes are vain, she yields — 
Even so poor Samson." — Quarles. 

III. Samson's history is a pictorial of the progressive 
downward tendencies of sinning. Glorious were the hopes 
of his infancy. Brightly shone his morning sun in the 
camp between Eshtaol and Zorah ; but soon he is astray at 
Timnath, and then repentant on the top of Etam, then sin- 
ning at Gaza, but delivered by the great mercy of God, but 
only delivered to go to Sorek, and to fall a victim to 
Delilah's fascination. And in his case, too, we see that the 
progress was made through the senses, and that the organ 



A GRIST FROM THE PRISON MILL OF GAZA. 203 

of sense chiefly offending was made the chief sufferer. He 
went down to Timnath and saw a woman that pleased him 
His eyes led him astray. But as yet, though smitten, he 
can hardly be said to have begun his wayward course, for 
he goes and consults his father and mother about the wo- 
man. But time for deliberation and the indulgence of his 
parents only strengthen his passion for the maiden. From 
seeing her he talks with her, and his parents talk for him, 
and at last he is married, but he does not regain paradise 
by marrying a Philistine. For a good while we know but 
little of him ; doubtless he has found much to regret, but 
still is far from being established in grace, for by and by we 
find him very unexpectedly at Gaza, in a most shameful 
career of guilt; and when delivered by supernatural 
strength, he is delivered only to go and involve himself 
more deeply than ever with another Philistine woman. 
Truly his conduct almost paralyzes our attempts at explana- 
tion. 

No doubt his overt acts of sinning were preceded, as is 
always the case with backsliders, by a gradual and secret 
consumption of his inner life. Our surprise is not so much 
at his shameless fall in Gaza, as at his backsliding so rapidly 
as to allow himself to fall at Sorek, so soon again after his 
miraculous deliverance from the Gazites. But the stupefy- 
ing and hardening process and deceitfulness of a course of 
sinning is seen, also, in his gradual approach to ruin in 
sporting with Delilah. There was a sort of " method in 
his madness/' but all tending to his fall. He tells her to 
bind him " with seven green withs," as though jestingly 
he had said, Bind me with a straw, you know I am so fond 
of you, you can do anything you wish with me. And when 
he tells her to weave the seven locks of his head, we find 
him sporting with sacred things. Now it is plain he is lost. 
His enchantress is within the guards ; the sentinels are all 



204 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

past ; a little more cunning and perseverance, and she 
wins. " She has allured him to the brink of the precipice, 
where his senses reel and sicken, and get to be quite use- 
less, and as good as abandoned him. ;; As he decayed in 
spiritual life, so the Lord departed from him. But like 
most miserable backsliders, he was surprised that the Lord 
had really forsaken him. He fancied he could have pro- 
ceeded with perfect impunity to such extremities. He was 
not prepared to find himself forsaken. But his experience 
soon convinced him that he had not only lost the graces and 
gifts with which he had been endowed, but as he struggled 
and fell under the rude grasp of his blood-thirsty ene- 
mies, he finds that the Lord had indeed departed from him. 
And, doubtless, if we could read the inner history of thou- 
sands of living men who are fulfilling the lusts of the flesh 
and of the mind, we should find that their departure from 
the principles of their pious education had been quite ac- 
curately typified in Samson's downward course. There is 
something alarming and mournful in the fact that the pious 
resolutions of many men, and the feelings of their early 
years, will not be awakened till they are on a death-bed, or 
at the judgment seat of Christ. 

We are prone to forget that strength of character in evil 
or in good is a growth, and may be a slow and imperceptible 
growth. The oak is called the monarch of the forest, but 
is not of mushroom growth. First the acorn sprouted, the 
tiny leaf appeared, the rains bathed it, the winds rocked it, 
the sun gladdened it ; and as it grew its capacities enlarged, 
and its arms were stretched out for more air, and dew, and 
sunshine, and its roots went down deeper into the earth, to 
draw up from thence the necessary sustenance and support. 
Frosts and snows became as efficient educators as light, and 
air, and dew ; and after many changing seasons of day and 
night, cold and heat, sunshine and storm, the tree was 



A GRIST FROM THE PRISON MILL OF GAZA. 205 

crowned monarch of the forest. And so it is in the edu- 
cation of our children. Their development is by degrees; 
their mental and moral powers are a growth as well as their 
bodies; and all the discipline and educators of the world 
in which they live are necessary to give them strength and 
beauty. They must be cared for and protected — they must 
receive discipline and culture from misfortunes as well as 
from success. They will have to pass through long dreary 
days as well as through bright and joyous ones. Books and 
men, persons and things, the whole living world of art and 
of nature, are constantly giving them lessons ; and more 
than everything else, the example of their own parents and 
immediate associates. The fireside is the world's greatest 
university. The great masses of mankind do not receive 
the honours of a college, but all are graduates of the hearth. 
The learning of the books and the lectures of university 
halls may moulder and rust in the storehouse of memory, 
but the simple lessons of home, enamelled upon the years 
of childhood, defy the decay of years. In attempting to 
clean and restore an old portrait, it sometimes happens that 
a brighter picture is revealed beneath the old one. So it 
may be with youth and manhood. The first picture on the 
canvass is the one drawn in our tenderest years, and though 
it may be covered over by others, it is imperishable; and as 
time ripens, and we approach nearer to eternity, it will shine 
through the outward picture, and perhaps wholly eclipse it. 
Early impressions are the strongest, and the last to fade 
from the memory. The home fireside is the greatest insti- 
tution God has furnished for the education of our race, and 
his truth is the most powerful agent for enlightening and 
forming the mind. 

We have said before and we repeat it again, it is upon 
family culture and training, more than anything else, we 

place our hope for the future of our country. Corruption 
18 



206 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

is the plague of Republics. It makes tbem weak, and then 
they fall an easy prey to a military despot. Nor is any 
system of mere morality and civilization sufficient to stand 
against the corrupting influences of wealth segregated from 
Christianity. History also proves, beyond cavil, that it is 
not enough to cry out against corruption when it comes. 
It is then too late. Demosthenes did this. Cicero did the 
same; and yet both Athens and Rome perished. Resist- 
ance was made too late. The only effectual stand that can be 
against it is in the nursery. Our homes must be the train- 
ing places of virtue and religion. The mother and the fa- 
ther must be the great teachers of the household. The 
father must maintain discipline and morality, and the 
mother must instil the sweet lessons of pious sentiments, 
and of stern morality, amidst a corrupting and sensual age. 
When all our wives are " chaste, keepers at home," and 
thoroughly awake to their high behests as the mothers of 
the model Republic ; and instead of fluttering in silk for 
public admiration, make it a paramount duty to teach their 
sons the principles of honour, patriotism, and integrity, then 
we shall underwrite with confidence the perpetuity of our 
liberties. 

Then as patriots and friends of the Great Redeemer, we 
must increase our contributions and personal efforts to 
advance true religion in the world. We must not sit still 
in inglorious ease, until the ruins of our distinctive institu- 
tions bury us and the hopes of mankind invested in us. 
We must be up and at the powers of avarice, prejudice, 
selfishness, ignorance, and irreligion. No time is to be 
lost. While we sleep the enemy sows tares ; and besides, 
the day is far spent already, and the night cometh when no 
man can work. 

IV. Once more, the downward course of the Hebrew 
judge illustrates our reluctance to give up the last badge 



A GRIST FROM THE PRISON MILL OF GAZA. 207 

of our Nazarite consecration. We find him disgustingly 
in dalliance with sin, and yet keeping, as it were, to the 
very last moment the outward sign of his covenant rela- 
tion to God. His vows were for life. But in those cases 
where the Nazarite covenant was for a limited period of 
life, the expiration of that period was signalized by shaving 
the head. When Samson, therefore, told his religious 
secret, he took the formal step to separate himself wholly 
from his God. Long since his heart had fearfully back- 
slidden, but the form of his religion he still held to with 
dogged pertinacity. The substance of his covenant he had 
long since lost, but the seal of it he now throws to the 
devil. I do not wonder, children of pious parents, that you 
are uneasy if living in sin under such vows as rest upon 
you. Nor do I wonder that you are reluctant to part with 
the last locks that bind you to the God of your fathers. 
But beware, I beseech you, of sceptical books, licentious 
pictures, scoffing companions, and of the strange woman. 
Forsake not the house of God. Cleave to your mother's 
Bible. Once you begin the way of the backslider, you will 
find it is upon " slippery places," and that every step be- 
comes more and more slippery, and the precipice darker 
and deeper. 

" The mind that broods o'er guilty woes 
Is like a scorpion girt by fire — 
So writhes the mind remorse hath riven, 
Unfit for earth, undoomed for heaven ; 
Darkness above, despair beneath, 
Around it flame, within it death." 

We hope Samson was saved from Satan's snares, but it 
was as a brand plucked from the burning — saved as by fire. 
Shame, remorse, unavailing regret, resentment at Delilah's 
baseness, and a crushing sense of the dishonour he had 
brought upon religion, were quite enough to make a purga- 
tory for his soul. It is here and in this world the tortur- 



208 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

ings of the impenitent begin. The giant judge is now a 
flaming beacon on the brow of ruin. Eyeless and grinding 
like the vilest slave ; but his bodily sufferings and his dis- 
grace are nothing to his mental anguish. The pains of hell 
get hold of him. Beware, Oh ; beware of the lusts of the 
flesh, which 

" Weave the winding sheet of souls, 
And lay them in the urn of everlasting death." 



THE FINAL CONTEST AND TRAGEDY. 209 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE FINAL CONTEST AND TRAGEDY. 

"All the contest is now 

'Twixt God and Dagon. 

This day the Philistines a popular feast 

Here celebrate in Gaza ; and proclaim 

Great pomp, and sacrifice, and praises loud 

To Dagon, as their God : — 

With sacrifices, triumph, pomp and games, 

Of gymnic artists, wrestlers, riders, runners, 

Jugglers, and dancers, antics, mummers, mimics. 

Samson is dead. 

How died he ? Death to life is crown or shame." 

Milton, 

In Judges xvi. 21-30, we have a remarkable tragedy 
upon a feast — a tragedy, however, not as is often the case 
at feasts, from the fiends that lurk in the wine cups ; but 
as a judgment of God upon Dagon and his followers, in 
vindication of his prime minister, and for the deliverance of 
his people. At the beginning of this great feast the Israeli- 
tish judge was in a sad plight. His eyes have been put 
out, and loaded with brazen fetters he is made to grind at 
the mill. And yet it were better for him to be thus em- 
ployed than to have his eyes and lie in Delilah's lap. Bet- 
ter for him to be grinding at the prison mill in Gaza, than 
to be in Sorek. He was more blind with his eyes in 
Delilah's lap, than he was without them in the prison — a 
18* 



210 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

greater slave when he served her, than when he ground 
meal for the Philistines. He saw not his sins till he had 
no eyes. Then he began to receive the true illumination. 
Then he began to repent and as he repented and was for- 
given, his strength began to return to him. " God chas- 
teneth us as sons. He loveth us bleeding;" and when we 
have smarted enough, we shall feel his loving-kindness. 
There was a just retribution in putting out his eyes, for 
they were the instruments of his sinning. It was the lust 
of the eye that led him astray. But now this organ will 
lead him no more into temptation. 

" Howbeit the hair of his head began to grow again, after 
it was shaven." It was natural that his hair should grow 
again, but as the mere hair of his head did not constitute 
essentially his superior strength, so we must look for his 
power in the coming conflict to a supernatural source. He 
lost his strength because by losing his hair he had put him- 
self out of his condition of Nazariteship. He had violated 
his birth consecration. By disobedience he lost his strength ; 
but by sovereign mercy, the grace of repentance is given 
to him ; and as his hair grows, which was natural, so his 
strength returns, which is supernatural, and returns in the 
proportion that he increased in grace, and was restored to 
the divine favour. Convinced of his great sin in this whole 
affair — sensible of his weakness and folly — again in his 
right mind, penitent and earnestly imploring forgiveness, 
and renewing his vows with a deeper sense of his own un- 
worthiness and dependence upon almighty grace than ever 
before, he is again at peace with God. But the wretched 
Philistines knew nothing of all this. They saw not the 
strugglings of his great soul, and were ignorant of the 
growth of his inner life. They were incapable of appre- 
ciating his anguish of spirit, even if they perceived it. 
And it is even so now ; the life of a true believer is in part 



THE FINAL CONTEST AND TRAGEDY. 211 

hidden from the world. His principles, joys and sorrows, 
hopes and fears, the men of the world do not understand, 
neither can they, for they are spiritually discerned. Sam- 
son is now chiefly concerned with his own heart. The loss 
of his eyes, and the labour of turning the mill, and the gibes 
and coarse laughter of his old enemies were nothing to him, 
in comparison with his soul's conflict. He heeded not the 
outer world. His whole soul is now intent on recovering 
God's favour. And as he grew in true repentance and re- 
devotement, so his strength began to return to him, and his 
hair, which was the sign of his covenant with God and of 
his hold upon omnipotent power, began to grow also. In 
his recovery, therefore, we have a correspondence between 
the outward sign and the inward grace. The progressive 
growth of his hair intimates his progressive repentance 
towards God, and his growth in the divine favour. As his 
recovery progressed, his meditations in his gloomy cell and 
in his toil at the prison mill must have been exceedingly 
varied, and his feelings intense — now of self-reproach, and 
then of hope; now of keenest grief, and then of rejoicing 
in the overpowering sense of divine forgiveness, and in the 
dawning hope, that yet he should be able to signalize in 
some remarkable way the termination of his mission as a 
deliverer of Israel. His experience in his dreary darkness 
and almost hopeless drudgery, must have been, like his life 
in general, an extraordinary one. It is not for us to pic- 
ture out the tumults, despairings, and hopes, and at last 
rejoicings of his soul. It was doubtless with him as it is 
with believers now; all his mere reasoning failed, and he 
was compelled to seek refuge in the precious promises of 
Him who is able and willing to forgive us our sins, if we 
confess and forsake them. For the blood of his son Jesus 
Christ cleanseth us from all sin. 



212 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

II. But wicked as the Philistines were, they were a 
religious people, according to the religion of their nation. 

"Then the lords of the Philistines gathered them 
together, for to offer a great sacrifice unto Dagon their god, 
and to rejoice; for they said, Our god hath delivered 
Samson our enemy into our hand. And when the people 
saw him, they praised their god; for they said, Our god 
hath delivered into our hands our enemy and the destroyer 
of our country, which slew many of us." 

After very careful examination of all the authorities 
within my reach, I am confident there is nothing in the text 
that is not abundantly sustained by ancient history and re- 
cent discoveries. The most probable derivation of the name 
Dagon is from Dag, a fish. Some heathen writers seem to 
have spoken of the same god under the name Derceto, and 
some by the name Astarte. At least they have ascribed the 
same form and attributes to a divinity known by each of these 
names. According to Lucian* this god was first a fish 
with a man's head, and then with a woman's head. Dio- 
dorus Siculus*}* says this god had " the head of a woman, 
and all the rest of the body was like a fish. "J Milton both 
in his Paradise Lost and in Samson Agonistes makes Dagon 
" a sea-idol," part man and part fish. There is a well known 
passage in Horace's Art of Poetry, which I have not a 
doubt is an allusion to the idea then prevailing of this sea- 

* Lucian De Dea Syra. 

f Diodorus Siculus, lib. ii. 

J The learned Calmet says the same : Desinet in pi seem mulier formosa 
superne." Consult also Selden de Diis Syris, c. 3. de Dagone. The 
fragments of Berosus referred to may be seen in Cory's Fragments: p. 
30, as preserved by Appollodorus. See also Beyr's commentary and 
Abarbanel's on 1 Samuel j Layard's Nineveh and its Remains, English 
ed. vol. ii, p 466, 7. Also Layard's Discoveries, second expedition, New- 
York ed. p. 344, etc. 






THE FINAL CONTEST AND TRAGEDY. 213 

god Dagon. Supposing, says lie, a painter join a human 
head to a horse's neck; or, in Francis's translation : 

" Or if he gave to view a beauteous maid 
Above the waist, with every charm array'd, 
Should a foul fish her lower parts infold, 
"Would you not smile such pictures to behold ?" 

Nor should we forget the fact in proof of this fish -god's wor- 
ship on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, that there 
were at least two cities in Palestine, called Beth-Dagon, 
that is, the house or temple of Dagon. Joshua xv. 41 ; 
xix. 27. One was in Judah and one in Asher. 

It appears in the text that the captivity of Samson was 
to the Philistines a proof that their god had gained the 
victory over his God. And in 1 Sam. ix. 7, and v. 2, they 
are found indulging in the same exultation, confident from 
the ark having fallen into their hands, that Dagon was 
superior to Jehovah. In like manner the Assyrians, 1 
Kings xx. 28, fancy that they have been defeated because 
they had fought with the Israelites in the hill country, seeing 
that the God of Israel was a God of the hills, whereas their 
gods were gods of the valleys. And Pharaoh's haughty 
defiance of the power of Jehovah clearly implies that he 
thought him merely the national god of the Hebrews, and 
greatly inferior to his own gods, and therefore he would not 
hear his voice, nor let Israel go. Ex. v. 2. 

III. We are now introduced to the god of this " solemn 
feast. " Let us consider the house of their worship and its 
downfall. 

From the text we learn that the house in which the Phi- 
listine lords were gathered together to offer a great sacri- 
fice unto Dagon, their god, was full of men and women, 
and that it stood on and was borne up by "two middle 
pillars." But I think the labour of the learned to prove 



214 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

that tills house had but two pillars, all lost. It is not historic- 
ally true that the ancients made any such structures resting 
only on two pillars. And so far as the history before us is 
concerned, there may have been as many pillars to the house 
of Dagon, as there are in the hall of the thousand pil- 
lars of Constantinople, or in the great hall of Karnak, and 
yet the two centre pillars being the key to the building, 
may have so borne it up, that it may be said to have stood 
on them, and when they were pulled down, the whole edifice 
fell to the ground. 

Sir Christopher Wren's explanation of the structure and 
fall of this edifice is this. He says : " Conceive a vast roof 
of cedar beams resting at one end upon the walls, and cen- 
tering at the other upon one short architrave that united 
two cedar pillars in the middle. One pillar would not be 
sufficient to unite the ends of at least one hundred beams 
that tended to the centre; therefore, I say, there must have 
been a short architrave resting upon two pillars, upon which 
all the beams tending to the centre might be supported. 
Now if Samson, by his miraculous strength, pressing on one 
or both these pillars, moved it from its basis, the whole roof 
must of necessity fall."* These remarks from so eminent 
an architect are commended to the attention of those who 
deny that the ancients built such structures at all, or if they 
did, that Samson could have demolished such a one in the 
manner described in the text. I do not, however, see the 
necessity of deciding whether the Philistines' building were 
a temple or a market or a palace. We know that the Egyp- 
tians had temples and palaces long before this, and we have 
found that the Philistines were of Egyptian origin. It is 
also known that the temples, market places, and palaces were 
sometimes all united together. The same custom obtained 

* Hewlett's Bible, quoted by Bush. 



THE FINAL CONTEST AND TRAGEDY. 215 

subsequently in Greece and Rome. I am aware that it is 
urged as an objection to the historic verity of the text, that 
if such a building had been demolished in this way, greater 
prominence would have been given to such a catastrophe. 
But the text does not state that all the building fell. It 
may be that only the wing or protruding portion opposite 
to the grand entrance, in which the lords and their families 
were assembled, fell. And besides how do we know that it 
did not make a profound sensation in all the surrounding 
country? Where are the annals of the Philistine satrapies 
that say it did not? It is fairly inferred from the text 
that it did make a profound impression ; for the warrior 
thousands of Philistia made no resistance to Samson's breth- 
ren, who came and took away his body from the ruins, and 
buried him in the sepulchre of his father Manoah, as a 
prince and a great man in Israel. At least we are bold to 
say that there is not a syllable uttered or fairly implied from 
our record that is inconsistent with the known usages of 
that age and country. The proof is complete that the 
ancients constructed vast sacred enclosures. They were 
generally a kind of amphitheatre or arena, the first tier of 
which usually came near or quite together on pillars at or 
opposite to the main opening. The first and lowest tier con- 
verged somewhat like the heels of a horse-shoe upon the 
pillars at the lower side, and rose rapidly behind. Within 
the walls and under the seats were numerous cloisters or 
stalls. The seats receded in regular tiers from the open 
court, which was for the wild beasts and wrestlers or gladia- 
tors. Sometimes a portion of the court and of the seats 
was covered with a flat or gently declining roof. These 
amphitheatres were the largest structures of the ancients. 
They were computed to have been large enough to hold from 
fifty to eighty thousand spectators. The ruins of those of 
Athens, Nismes, Verona, and Home, which still exist, prove 



216 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

their magnitude. There is no difficulty then in finding 
room for the multitude of men and women to witness the 
sport of the Hebrew captive, nor in explaining how the 
building or a portion of it, rested on two main key pillars. 
Nor are we without collateral evidence. Tacitus in his 
Annals (lib. vi. 62) tells us of an amphitheatre that fell 
almost in the same way as this house of the Philistines. 
And Pliny (Hist. Nat. xxxvi. 15) says two theatres at 
Rome, built by Caius Curio, were large enough to hold all 
the Roman people, and yet so constructed as to depend upon 
a single hinge or pivot for support. And Dr. Shaw, in his 
travels and observations in the Barbary States and Levant, 
says that he " frequently saw the inhabitants of Algiers di- 
verting themselves upon the Dey's palace; which, like 
many more of the same quality and denomination, has an 
advanced cloister over against the gate of the palace, made 
in the form of a large pent-house, supported only by one or 
two contiguous pillars in the front, or else in the centre. 
In such open structures as these, the great officers of state 
distribute justice, and transact the public affairs of their 
provinces. Here, likewise, they have their public enter- 
tainments, as the lords of the Philistines had in the temple 
of their god. Supposing, therefore, that in the house of 
Dagon was a cloistered building of this kind, the pulling 
down of the front or centre pillars which supported it, would 
alone be attended with the catastrophe which happened to 
the Philistines." 

Bearing in mind these historic facts — that the ancients 
used large buildings for the transaction of business, for 
holding public assemblies, for games, feasts, and religious 
ceremonies — that such structures were made sometimes 
round, and sometimes nearly in the shape of a horse-shoe, 
so that the building was made to rest mainly on two or a 
few pillars in the foreground or portico, as an arch rests 



THE FINAL CONTEST AND TRAGEDY. 217 

upon a key stone — and then consider the great weight of 
such an assemblage as was on the roof — and bear in mind, 
that Samson pulled or pushed one of the pillars with his 
right hand and the other with his left, and called at the 
same time upon his God, who strengthened him; and we 
have no difficulty in believing that at least the portion of 
the building containing the lords came crashing down with 
great violence, killing them and crushing those that were 
below, amongst whom was Samson himself. It is not at all 
necessary that we should be able to point to a building now 
in the East exactly like this one. The essential parts of 
such a structure are to be found, and historically we know 
such buildings were used by the ancients, and that similar 
catastrophes have occurred in other places. Everything 
known of ancient times and of surrounding nations corro- 
borates the truthfulness of the Bible narrative as an authen- 
tic history. It must not be overlooked, however, that Sam- 
son pulled down the building by the Spirit of the Almighty. 
Bible histories are not incredible, because they are not im- 
possible, nor under the circumstances are they improbable. 
The hand of Jehovah was in them. Who then can say 
they are impossible ? The Almighty is never at a loss for 
agents or means by which to serve his people and fulfil his 
purposes. Samson, now penitent and forgiven, has his 
commission restored to him, and in the last acts of his life 
as in his earlier days, we find him again performing exploits 
as God's agent. 

IV. The superstition of the Philistines misinterpreted 
the cause of their success against Samson. It was not be- 
cause their god had prevailed over Samson's God, but 
because Samson had disobeyed his God. It was owing to 
his sinning, and not to Dagon's superiority, that he was help- 
less in their hands. The barbarians of Melita fell into a 

similar mistake in regard to Paul. It is the nature of all 
19 



218 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

superstitions to make mistakes by arousing false fears, lead- 
ing to wrong conclusions, and ascribing effects to causes 
which do not exist. According to their theory and practice 
on this occasion, when Samson smote them hip and thigh 
with a great slaughter, and when he slew them " heaps upon 
heaps with the jaw-bone of an ass," they should have said, 
" Our god has failed us." When smarting under Samson's 
blows, they should have said, Where is now our god ? Why 
does he allow our enemy to prevail ? But to their praise 
be it said, we find them more ready to bless than to curse 
their deity. Whatever may be thought of their idolatry 
and cruelty, they cannot be charged with ingratitude. 
They did not forget to ascribe their success to their god. 
They knew that it was Delilah that had betrayed Samson 
into their hands, yet as they shouted the praises of Dagon, 
they said, " Our god hath delivered our enemy into our 
hands." In their gratitude they are a model to us. Gener- 
ally men claim all their prosperity as due to themselves, 
but cast the blame of their miscarriages upon their bad 
luck, which is their way of accusing Providence. This is 
both unjust and sinful. 

As on a former occasion, so here, their shout was Sam- 
son's battle cry. No doubt, their boisterous praise of Dagon 
was a great mortification to him. He knew they ascribed 
their success against him to their god, and regarded his fall 
and disgrace as a proof that Dagon had triumphed over 
Jehovah. Ah ! the dishonour that he felt he had brought 
upon his religion was his keenest grief. His captivity, 
blindness, and bodily sufferings were nothing to him in 
comparison with his agony for having sinned against the 
living and true God. It was true then, and it is true now, 
the heathen judge of the Christian's God, not so much by 
his creed and catechism, as by his conduct and condition in 
the world. The manners and modes of dealing with the 



THE FINAL CONTEST AND TRAGEDY. 219 

heathen practised by merchants and travellers, form the 
heathen idea of Christianity more directly than any other 
source of influence. 

" And it came to pass when their hearts were merry, 
that they said, Call for Samson that he may make us sport. 
And they called for Samson out of the prison-house, 
and he made them sport : and they set him between the 
pillars." 

Milton says Samson at first refused to attend their feast 
to make sport before Dagon, but being at length persuaded 
inwardly that it was an occasion from God, he went. They 
had power to compel his attendance whether he would or 
not. He was powerless in their hands. It is not stated 
here what kind of sport he was to make. The Septuagint 
and Josephus think their purpose was to insult him, and 
make him a laughing-stock. According to the Septuagint, 
" they buffeted him." Josephus says : " He was brought 
out that they might insult him in their cups." At all 
events, they would have no other sport but from the great 
Hebrew. He who had been their terror, must now be their 
play. Every man, woman, and boy could now laugh at the 
blind hero, that had once been their most fearful enemy. 
Scorn is added to misery; insult to injury. No doubt 
Samson was ready to wish himself deaf as well as blind, 
that he might not hear their cruel jests and horrid blas- 
phemies. Whether Samson amused them first with some 
attempts at extraordinary strength, as he was made the butt 
of their jests or not, he did at last make sport for them 
with a vengeance. In the East it was common at their 
feasts to have athletic sports. 

But now that the heathen have triumphed, will not God 
arise ? Now that Samson has repented, as did Peter with 
many bitter tears, and is forgiven — and his hair has grown, 
and he is again in covenant with his God, how shall 



220 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

his enemies escape ? For if judgment begin in God's own 
house and upon his own chosen servants, what shall be the 
end of the ungodly, who obey not his voice? Surely it is 
the hour of long pent up and terrible vengeance. May not 
Samson now vindicate the superiority of Jehovah over the 
false Philistine god ? Yes ; the whole scene is now changed. 
The contest is no longer between the Hebrew judge and the 
Philistine lords, but between Dagon and Jehovah. The 
battle is now to rage on Mount Olympus, and Troy is to be 
lost or won in heaven, and not on the dusty plains below. 
From Hebrews xi. it is clear that Samson's prayer was the 
prayer of sincere faith. It was through faith he prevailed. 
If he had not been truly penitent, and had not been accepted 
of God, his last prayer could not have been successful. His 
struggle of mind must have been great. But out of despair 
he gathered hope, as his enemies increased in their boister- 
ous blasphemy. The case seemed a desperate one. The 
temple is full of men and women, making themselves merry 
at his expense, and in blaspheming the living God. He 
begins again to feel the Spirit of God stirring him as in 
years long since past. He remembers that the great com- 
mission from heaven announced for him before he was bom, 
was to begin to deliver Israel from the Philistines. He 
asks himself, May it not be that now I shall be able to vin- 
dicate the superiority of God Almighty over this wretched 
idol, whom his enemies are worshipping ? May it not be 
that for this hour I have been spared, and that now I may 
most wonderfully redeem my great commission ? " And he 
called upon the Lord, and said, Lord God, remember me, 
I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, 
God. And he took hold of the two middle pillars upon 
which the house stood and on which it was borne up, of the 
one with his right hand, and of the other with his left, and 
said, Let me die with the Philistines." 



THE FINAL CONTEST AND TRAGEDY. 221 

Solemnly re-dcdicating himself to God, consecrating his 
life as a patriot and a martyr, if God would now be pleased 
to accept it, as the last, best, and only offering he had to 
make — praying this once more to be heard, and that he 
might die with the Philistines, fulfilling in his last act and 
dying moment the terrible mission for which he had been 
raised up — as he prayed he bowed himself with all his 
might, and the house fell upon the lords and upon all the 
people that were therein. " So the dead which he slew at 
his death were more than they which he slew in his life." 
Neither Leonidas nor Lord Nelson had a death so terribly 
sublime. His was not the suicide's death, but that of a 
martyr who consecrates himself to death, if such is God's 
will, in the performance of duty or the maintenance of 
truth. The result proves that God did graciously conde- 
scend to hear his prayer, and to accept his consecration. 
For without direct supernatural power he could not have thus 
prevailed over his enemies. 

V. It has been objected that Samson's last prayer is not 
the prayer of a dying christian — that it breathes the spirit 
of revenge, which is wholly unbecoming a pious man at any 
time, and much less so in his dying moments. To this we 
reply : 

1. However comforting it may be to a dying man him- 
self and to his surrounding friends to utter nothing but pious 
words, ecstatic hopes, and fervent supplications — however 
desirable it may be to die in the full assurance of heaven, 
almost in sight of the celestial city, as Stephen did — still such 
experiences and dying deliverances are not required to prove 
our acceptance with God. A man maybe a godly man, and 
die without such ecstatic joys. The operations of the di- 
vine Spirit are manifold. Our experience and utterances of 
inward life are moulded very much by our temperaments and 
style of education. Holiness is essential to the enjoyment 
19* 



222 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

of God. And holiness is a habitude, rather than a spasm 
or temporary emotion; and ordinarily this spiritual habi- 
tude is the growth of a life of prayer and godliness under 
the culture of the Divine Spirit. The life and faith, and 
not the feelings of a man in his dying moments, are to be 
taken as exponents of his state in the sight of God. 

2. Samson was educated out of the law of the Lord, 
which required " an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth." 
Retaliation was his catechism. I do not now consider 
why such was the law of Moses. The fact is certain. But 
it is equally certain that our Lord alludes to this very law 
of Moses, and changes it, saying, It shall no longer be " an 
eye for an eye ;" but I say unto you, Requite not evil with 
evil ; pray for your enemies ; forgive them ; do good to 
them that despitefully use you, that you may become the 
children of your Father which is in heaven. Samson had 
not then before him, as we have, the example of the meek 
and suffering God-man. He had not his history in the gar- 
den, and in Pilate's hall, and on the cross. He had not 
heard the prayer, nor any such an one : " Father, forgive 
them, for they know not what they do." It is not fair, 
therefore, for us to pronounce on the prayer of the penitent 
and dying judge from our stand-point of gospel light, but 
according to the light of Moses's dispensation. We should 
not expect him to die as Paul did. His mission and char- 
acter belong wholly to a different dispensation. 

3. We must remember that Samson's prayer was in keep- 
ing with his divine commission. As a soldier, he dies in 
the heat of the battle with his armour on. If it was right 
for him to bear his commission to destroy the Philistines for 
the vindication of God, and the deliverance of Israel from 
their oppressors, then his death was in the way of duty. 
He was sent to execute divine judgments on the oppressors 
of God's people. He did not, therefore, throw his life 



THE FINAL CONTEST AND TRAGEDY. 223 

away. He did not lay rash hands upon himself. He did not 
know what the final result would be, but, as every other soldier 
who goes into battle for his country and for the truth of God, 
he puts his life in jeopardy. He takes it in his hands, ready 
at any moment to offer it up as a sacrifice. As his hair had 
grown, his experience of divine grace had increased ; until 
now, when God's enemies were at the very highest point 
of exultation and defiance, the Spirit of the Lord moved 
him once more — first, to say, "O Lord God, remember me, 
I pray thee ; only this once, God," and then moved him 
to lean against the pillars and take hold of them, and at 
the same time stirred him up to further prayer, saying, If 
such is now the divine will, in fulfilling my commission, let 
me even die with the Philistines. And the Lord heard his 
prayer, accepted the offering of his body and soul, and in 
his death he slew more than in all his life. 

11 Samson hath quit himself 



Like Samson, and heroicly hath finished 
A life heroic." 



224 THE GIANT JUDGE. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE EPILOGUE AND ITS TEACHINGS. 

" Like a visitant 

From the other world, he comes as if to haunt 
Thy guilty soul with dreams of lost delight, 
Long lost to all but memory's aching sight; — 

As when the spirit of our youth 

Returns in sleep, sparkling with all the truth 
And innocence once ours, and leads us back 
In mournful mockery, o'er the shining track 
Of our young life, and points out every ray 
Of hope and peace we've lost upon the way." 

Lalla JRookh. 

The late venerable Dr. Miller of Princeton, N. J., who 
was one of the most perfect and well balanced men as a 
scholar, theologian, and christian gentleman, this country 
has ever produced, used to say, that if a student had sense 
enough to bear it, it was an advantage to put him to study- 
ing a text book that required some corrections; for the de- 
tection of the errors and their correction helped amazingly 
to keep up the attention, and draw out his own resources. 
There is certainly such a thing as being so straight as to 
lean over. There may be so much straining of rules as to 
destroy all the benefits of discipline. Children were made 
to play as well as study, to laugh heartily as well as to think 
seriously. The bow always bent is sometimes converted 
into a strait jacket. To laugh well is medicine for the 



THE EPILOGUE AND ITS TEACHINGS. 225 

body and the mind, and to be able to wonder well is a great 
blessing. One of the old fathers, (and may his shadow never 
be less,) Clemens Alexandrinus, says : " The beginning of 
truth is to wonder, for this proceeds from conscious igno- 
rance." The old Stagyrite had taught almost the same 
thing before the Alexandrine was born, when he said, It is 
by wondering men begin to love philosophy and to grow 
wise. (Aristotle. Metaph. 1, 2.) It is true, however, that 
there is a kind of foolish wonder, that does not promise much 
good — but even that is not so hopeless as ignorance so pro- 
found as to be unconscious of its own existence. It were 
better men should be astrologers than that they should be 
so stupid as not to know that there are any stars over their 
heads. I should rather undertake to teach those that are 
stone-blind, than those who are so stupid and indolent, that 
they will not open their eyes; for the stone-blind feel 
and acknowledge their blindness, and may learn to read 
without eyes ; whereas the others are so self-sufficient and 
content with their blindness that they either deny that they 
are blind at all, or declare it best to be blind. Nothing is 
so hopeless as ignorance too complete to wonder ; for then 
there are no errors that may lead to a knowledge of truth. 
If the beginning of wisdom is to fear God and know our- 
selves, then may we say that the faculty to wonder is a 
shadow of something beautiful and good to come. I do not 
belong to the school that would blot out from our juvenile 
literature the seven wise men of Gotham, Blue Beard, Jack 
the Giant Killer, Robinson Crusoe, the Arabian Nights, 
and fairy tales in general. By no means. In judicious 
hands this species of literature is invaluable for training 
and purifying the youthful mind. It were far better to ex- 
cite the love of the marvellous, and even of the terribly 
sublime than of the gross and sensual. After the nursery 
period well employed, some five or six authors are quite 



226 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

enough to train the intellect and heart. Who needs to 
know more than he can learn from the Bible, Homer, Dante, 
Shakspeare, Bacon, and Milton, and a few standard histo- 
rians ? 

The sacred story of Israel's giant judge is a wonderful 
one, but it is as true as marvellous. It is a simple, earnest, 
straight forward narrative of a man — a real man, and of 
what he did, and of what befel him in just such a world 
as we live in, and among men, women, and children exactly 
such as we are. We believe the Bible Samson is the origi- 
nal of all the stories of Hercules that fill so many pages of 
heathen literature. And by exciting attention to his life, 
we hope, on the love of the wonderful, to plant a lever that 
shall turn the whole heart to truth. Joseph, Daniel, Nehe- 
miah, and various other Bible heroes are more to our liking; 
but, if " there is," as the bard of Avon says, " a history in 
all men's lives," I fancy Samson's is not an exception, and 
as his biography has been given to us by the Holy Spirit, 
it is our duty to remove objections to it, and see what it 
teaches us. As already intimated, Samson's acts are more 
for our wonder than for our imitation ; nevertheless impor- 
tant principles are unfolded in his history. Much as Mil- 
ton's Samson Agonistes is to be admired as a whole, it seems 
to us, he wholly fails to appreciate his character. The dying 
speech which he puts into his mouth as he pulls down the 
temple is not true to the text, nor worthy of the occasion. 
It falls far below our idea of Samson in that awful moment. 
His enemies were in force around him, mocking him and 
his God. He knew that it was their custom on such occa- 
sions, after they had satisfied themselves with feastings and 
sport, to sacrifice their chief prisoner to their gods. In 
this great extremity, therefore, he betook himself to prayer 
for grace to triumph in a martyr's death, if the Lord would 
be pleased to grant him such an honour. Having eyes now 



THE EPILOGUE AND ITS TEACHINGS. 227 

to see Him who is invisible, he said : " Lord God, I pray 
thee think upon me ; Lord God, I beseech thee strengthen 
me at this time only. For thy great name's sake — for thy 
glory among the heathen, help me, Lord, help me this 
one time." It was zeal for the divine glory, and to retrieve 
the honour of the God of his fathers, that had been tar- 
nished by his fall, that made him so anxious now to die in 
such a way as to fulfil in his death, more fully than he had 
done in his life, the mission for which he had been raised 
up. As he knew he was now about to die, he seized this 
as the last opportunity to deliver Israel, and show that 
Jehovah and not Dagon was the true and living God. In 
his death scene, therefore, we see fast by his side again the 
presence of the Angel — 

" Who from his father's field 
Rode up in flames 

From off the altar, where an offering burned, 
As in a fiery column charioting." 

When dying we see him filled again with — 

" That Spirit that first rushed upon him in the camp of Dan." 

The lordly city of Gaza speaks then to us historically, 
from a period beyond which the memory of man runneth 
not. It was once the treasure-house of a Persian conqueror, 
as indeed its name is supposed to signify. But how 
its name came to be prophetic of its treasures, we know not. 
True, Philistine Sheikhs, Arabian Emirs, Assyrian, Per- 
sian, Egyptian, Greek, and Roman conquerors and kings 
have battled for its gates. Saladin the magnificent, and 
Richard the lion-heart, and Napoleon the great took some 
of life's stern lessons under the skies that still look down 
on Gaza. Ancient Gaza is all in ruins — shapeless, name- 
less ruins — capitals, architraves, columns, cornices, and 



228 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

marble floors, the cedar, fir, and acacia, alabaster, and gra- 
nite, that once echoed to the shouts of the worshippers of 
the great fish-god, though now unlettered, still utter forth a 
loud and distinctly articulate voice. Its stores of wine and 
oil, and treasures of jewels and costly spices are no more ; 
but Gaza still has for us treasures more valuable — lessons 
of instruction and warning — not only to those who are 
driving through life with a Jehu speed in fulfilling the lusts 
of the eye and the pride of the mind; but for all, old and 
young, and of every class. The marvellous career of the 
giant judge, and his tragical end is a lesson for our every- 
day life. 

1. Samson's life illustrates God's long-suffering and mercy. 
When evil doers are allowed for a time to go on in pros- 
perity, they should not presume, for there is a righteous 
God, that judgeth in the earth; and when his judgments 
fall on the guilty, he will cut short his awful work in ter- 
rible righteousness. But mercy is remembered amidst de- 
served wrath. The penitent is not therefore to despair, for 
God is merciful as well as just. Samson may fall into the 
hands of the Philistines ; even the ark of God may be in 
the camp of the uncircumcised, and be brought into the 
temple of their great Dagon ; but Jehovah is still supreme 
over all the gods. His arm is still omnipotent. There is 
indeed no god but God. The idols of the heathen are all 
vanity and lies. The ruins of the house of the Philistine 
lords, and the dismembered image of Dagon in his own 
temple before Jehovah's ark, are directly in proof, that their 
god is not as our God, even our enemies themselves being 
judges. 

2. Jehovah is the only sovereign. His government is 
supreme over all tribes and nations. The history of the 
Canaanites, Philistines, and Hebrews proves that it is Jeho- 
vah's pleasure to take cognizance of all his creatures on 



THE EPILOGUE AND ITS TEACHINGS. 229 

earth — to observe and rule over them as families, peoples, 
and individuals. As all the spokes of a wheel turn round 
when the wheel revolves, so a general providence necessa- 
rily implies a particular oversight of all the universe. How 
else could there have been any prophecy, or fulfilment of pro- 
mises ? In the prophecies fulfilled, and in those yet to be 
accomplished, we find an individual and a national applica- 
tion. The prophecies referred sometimes in part to the 
personal history of the individual, but generally or chiefly 
to his posterity. This is true of Abraham, Ishmael, Esau, 
and Jacob. Hence the distinctness with which the line 
of their descendants was preserved. It were a great gain 
for the politics and economics of communities and nations 
if the providence of God were more distinctly recognized. 
Every chapter of our national history is replete with proofs 
of God's presence. His hand has written all our history. 

3. Again it appears that God governs the world upon 
eternal principles — and not from fancy or passion. These 
principles are still in actual operation. A priori, we should 
argue that such must be the divine government of the uni- 
verse, and historically we find it pre-eminently so. The 
Creator is as really supreme over modern nations, as over 
ancient nations. Jehovah was as truly the God of Wash- 
ington as of Moses, only Moses was his lieutenant in an age 
of miracles. It is as true now as it was then, that sin de- 
files a land, and that God blesses obedience and punishes 
disobedience to his laws. Divine laws in morals are as im- 
mutable as in physics. God is just as supreme in the streets 
of the city as in the pathways of the planets. His ear is 
as open to prayer now, as it ever was in Solomon's tem- 
ple. And happiness everywhere, in heaven and earth, is 
nothing but a full hearted, cheerful harmony with the will 
of God. In keeping his commandments, there is great re- 
ward. 

20 



230 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

4. When patience has done its perfect work — when the 
hour of retribution has fully come, then there is no escape 
from the Almighty. The universe itself in ruins and in 
heaps upon heaps upon the guilty could not hide them from 
the all-seeing eye, nor prevent Him from bringing them to 
judgment. The old world, the Egyptians, the cities of the 
plain, and the history of the chosen people, as well as of the 
Philistines and Canaanites, prove this. 

5. But Samson's life illustrates divine laws in their ap- 
plication as well as in theory. In solving the riddle of his 
character we have truth objective and subjective. The 
glimpses we get of his spiritual life are sad enough. His 
weakness and inconsistencies are so mortifying as to be almost 
incredible. His infatuation for Philistine women rendered 
him apparently blind to their heathenism and their enmity 
towards Israel. Philistine maids frequently vanquished 
the champion that was to deliver Israel out of the hands 
of their oppressive countrymen. An old writer very nearly 
expresses the facts of this history, when he says, it was not 
so much Samson that overcame the Philistine men, as Phi- 
listine women that conquered Samson. 

6. Sin is an awfully steep precipice, and as slippery as 
steep. I know we are ready to cry out at Samson's stupid- 
ity, and Delilah's impudent treachery. And truly never 
was a man so overcome by flagons of wine, as this Nazarite 
was by his love for Delilah. We are almost ready to think 
Samson must have been void of common sense, when, after 
she had betrayed him three times, he should listen to her 
fourth proposal, and actually yield. And yet are there 
none of you, that have yielded to temptation not only three 
times, and then a fourth time, but ten times ten ? Is not 
every transgressor against God's laws as stupid as our in- 
fatuated judge? Sinful pleasures lodged and entertained 
in our bosoms are as dangerous and as treacherous as Deli- 



THE EPILOGUE AND ITS TEACHINGS. 231 

lah. In our better moments we know they aim at nothing 
less than our destruction. We know the wages of sin is 
death, and yet we yield ! Every one that yields to the in- 
toxicating cup, to the strange woman's smiles, or to the demon 
of fraud or of gambling, is like Samson sleeping in Delilah's 
lap, to wake up bereft of strength and peace of mind. 
Thrice the armed Philistines came out of their hiding-place 
to bind him, and yet he yields to the fourth temptation. 
Oh, what madness ! Fly at once. Resist the devil and he 
will flee from you. But if you parley with him ; he will 
bind you fast in his chains. 

All sins hang together like links in a chain. Delilah was 
a heathen. She had not the fear of God before her eyes, 
and as she wanted virtue, it is not strange that she was per- 
fidious. And so like india-rubber is conscience now-a-days, 
that, if it is used at all, it is easily stretched, and though 
hard to be washed clean, it is nevertheless often turned. 
So naturally and lovingly do sinful ways run together and 
follow each other, that men do often educate their conscience 
to call good evil, and evil good : and 

" Compound for sins they are inclined to, 
By damning those they have no mind to." 

If in straining at a gnat, they do not swallow a camel the 
first time, they will soon be able, from repeated trials, to 
swallow the whole caravan, gnats, and all. The liar is not 
satisfied till he steals ; and the thief soon kills. The 
drunkard is as lewd as he is full of wine, and she that traf- 
fics with her personal charms is as false as she is vile. And 
he that dwells with a concubine, to avoid the manly respon- 
sibilities of a lawful family, finds in the end that instead 
of having a jewel around his neck, he has bound himself, 
soul and body, to a burning millstone, that is dragging him 
hissing down to the pit. A person given up to one sin is 



232 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

sold to iniquity. By yielding to one sin, a greater suscep- 
tibility is created for others, and in the same proportion he 
is shorn of strength to resist temptation and to maintain 
his hold on virtue. He that does not make it a matter of 
conscience to abide by right principles in everything and 
everywhere, is not to be trusted in anything. 

7. We see that an ill-balanced character is a sadly de- 
fective one. If Samson had been as prudent as he was 
strong, as pious as he was patriotic, what a splendid hero 
he would have been ! But symmetry of character is also 
sadly wanting in modern times. Some are remarkable for 
their zeal, who make their public concern for the conver- 
sion of men cover their want of attention to their own 
families. But can a man be called of God to one duty at 
the expense of another — and in this case of a prior and 
paramount one ? Others are remarkable for their denomi- 
national or church zeal, but their daily walk is so irregular, 
that even when they are not absolutely guilty of moral de- 
linquencies in the sight of the law, their advocacy of re- 
ligion is not a recommendation. Others are text-quoting 
defenders of the Bible, but the light that is in them is 
smothered. The word of God dwells in them, but is not 
fruitful. They are cold as icicles. Another takes the 
Bible for his directory. He loves its truth, and he has 
some experimental knowledge of divine grace in his heart ; 
but he is so ill-tempered, so peevish, so irritable, that the 
symmetry of his character is destroyed. Men admit his 
sincerity of purpose, but wonder that so good a man should 
be so weak as to allow himself to be carried away with pas- 
sion. Oh, how much would the church gain if all its mem- 
bers were complete in Christ ! 

8. In Samson's life we see that constitutional sins are 
peculiarly dangerous. It is true God employs men as his 
agents, who are not perfect. Even great men are not with- 



THE EPILOGUE AND ITS TEACHINGS. 233 

out errors. Believers on earth are not saints glorified. In 
the course of this work it has been intimated several times 
that we have only a skeleton history of the giant judge. 
Of long periods we have no memoir at all, and of great 
achievements we have but a simple record of the fact. His 
faults are detailed. His good deeds not so fully chronicled. 
If we may say so without irreverence, our narrative does 
not seem to take pleasure in his exploits, but simply to set 
forth how divine sovereignty overruled them. His attach- 
ment to the Timnite, his fall at Gaza, and his blind affec- 
tion for Delilah, and his conflicts with the Philistines are 
recorded so far as seemed to be necessary to furnish us with 
the proof that the promise to his parents was faithfully 
kept, and no more. It seems almost as if infinite wisdom 
here illustrated how sorry an agent might perform mighty 
deeds, and how sovereign grace could at last reign where sin 
had abounded. 

9. Samson's life very properly leads us to the purity, 
sacredness, and stability of the marriage relation. The 
family is the foundation stone for national well-being. "We 
must at any price, at any and every sacrifice, preserve our 
christian homes, as the fountains of principle and piety, 
And never was there an age nor a people with whom so 
much depended upon the maintenance of sound principles 
and of true religion in the family as with us. If we yield 
here, all is lost. Our public institutions will be as the new 
cords on Samson's arms, mere cinders, if the principles of 
high morality and true religion are not taught in our homes. 
Thorough training and instruction must be given to the 
children of this Republic. And this work must be begun 
early at home, and continued long at home, and the school 
must never supersede the home. We have found Manoah's 
solicitude about the bringing up of his angel-announced son 
natural and proper. It is a great mistake to consider the 
20* 



234 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

education of a child an individual blessing rather than a 
general one — personal, rather than social. The advantages 
of education are indeed personal, and just in so far as they 
are a blessing to the individual members of society, in the 
same degree they are a blessing to society itself. The Bible 
teaches us that no one has a right to segregate himself from 
his fellow-men, with Cain-like indifference for their well- 
being. But an educated mind has extensive relations with 
the world. It is then contrary to the first and highest 
claims of humanity that it should refuse to shed its benign 
influences upon society. Nay, it is impossible to escape 
such a responsibility. Intellect can no more exist without 
responsibility, than matter without gravitation. Responsi- 
bility is as inseparable from our individual existence as our 
personal identity. Escape from it is as impossible as anni- 
hilation. We must, then, meet it as men, and justify the 
claims of God and man upon us, or turn traitors to the 
society of the universe and its ineffable Creator. In the 
measure, therefore, that we are blessed with talents, fac- 
ulties, and attainments, are our responsibilities increased. 
" Where much is given, much is required. He that knows 
his Lord's will, and does it not, shall be beaten with many 
stripes." As the glory of a State is but the aggregated 
glory of its several citizens, so whatever contributes to the 
mental enjoyment, social worth, productive industry, com- 
mercial reputation for integrity, and to the moral elevation 
of the individual members of the State, must be regarded 
as contributing also to its welfare and glory. The received 
maxim, then, that it is easier and cheaper to prevent crime, 
than to vindicate the laws and reform the transgressor, 
should be universally put into practice. The vices of igno- 
rance and depravity cost the State more than school-houses 
and teachers. The public safety under a free government 
requires that all the youth be instructed in knowledge and 



THE EPILOGUE AND ITS TEACHINGS. 235 

morality. And in attaining such blessings the greatest 
good of individuals is identical with that of the commu- 
nity. For a number of years there has been no want of 
energy on the part of the press of Great Britain and this 
country in advocating the enlightenment of the people in 
order to the enjoyment of free institutions. We are almost 
wearied with references to Greece and Rome, and the at- 
tempts at Republics in past ages by people not capable of 
preserving freedom, nor indeed able to comprehend what 
it is. The Ionian islands are a remarkable instance, how- 
ever, that is not so often referred to. Their history is a 
striking illustration of the hopelessness of a people under- 
taking to govern themselves without the requisite intelli- 
gence, morality, and religion. They have played very nearly 
the same game for many years. " Three times, at very 
wide intervals, has Corfu (the ancient Corcyra) found it 
necessary to abnegate, more or less completely, a political 
independence of which it was incapable, and to place itself 
under the sovereignty or protection of the power which in 
each of those respective ages was mistress of the seas."* 
At one time Corcyra was obliged to seek abroad refuge from 
her own selfish policy and her own internal factions by 
throwing herself into the arms of Athens. At another 
time she was compelled to seek protection against herself 
under the banner of Venice. And then again from an 
abortive attempt to form a Republic, the Ionians threw 
themselves at the feet of Russia, then of France, and finally 
passed under the protectorate of Great Britain. In 1802 
they sent M. Naranzi as envoy to Alexander, Emperor of 
Russia, begging that with an " imposing armed force," he 
would save them from the cruel sufferings of their attempts 
at self-government. They directed their envoy to say to 
the Czar : " That the inhabitants of the seven islands, who 
* London Quarterly Review, October, 1852, p. 168. 



236 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

had attempted to establish a republican form of government, 
are neither born free, nor are they instructed in any art of 
government, nor are they possessed of moderation so as to 
live peaceably under any government formed by their own 
countrymen." This was certainly very remarkable language 
for a people having intelligence enough to struggle to be 
free, and yet not able to govern themselves. But all history 
is a demonstration of its correctness. Italy and France, 
Central and South America are monuments proving to all 
the world that sanctified intelligence among the people alone 
can save them from the cruelties of self government. Mere 
knowledge is not enough. There must be constitutional 
laws, and right principles must be deeply implanted in the 
bosoms of those that would be free. Men can not govern 
themselves unless they abide immutably by the laws and 
constitution that guarantee their freedom. The great Eng- 
lish historian* has, in his usually happy way, described the 
very danger we so seriously apprehend. "I remember," 
says he, " that Adam Smith and Gibbon had told us that 
there would never again be a destruction of civilization by 
barbarians. The flood, they said, would no more return 
to cover the earth; and they seemed to reason justly, for 
they compared the immense strength of the civilized part of 
the world with the weakness of that part which remained 
savage, and asked from whence were to come those Huns, 
and from whence were to come those Vandals, who were 
again to destroy civilization ? Alas ! it did not occur to 
them that civilization itself might engender the bar- 
barians who should destroy it. It did not occur to them 
that in the very heart of great capitals, in the very neigh- 
bourhood of splendid palaces, and churches, and theatres, 
and libraries, and museums, vice and ignorance and misery 

* Macaulay's speech at Edinburgh. 



THE EPILOGUE AND ITS TEACHINGS. 237 

might produce a race of Huns fiercer than those who marched 
under Attila, and Vandals more bent on destruction than 
those who followed Genseric." 

10. Samson is a pictorial of a mother's anxiety and in- 
fluence. We have no powers of analysis sufficient to disin- 
tegrate the virtue, and freedom, and prosperity of modern 
Christendom, so as to show the proportion and amount of 
its well-doing and well-being that is distinctly to be traced 
to the influence of christian mothers ; but it is paramount 
to all other sources of power. For example, who can mea- 
sure the forming energy of Washington upon the destinies 
of the American people and of the world ? And yet in 
the chronicles of the invisible world the character of that 
great patriot was formed by the training of his mother. 
And upon examination, we find his mother's favourite 
author to have been the great christian judge, the English 
Sir Matthew Hale. The identical copy she used is still 
cherished as an heir-loom, in the family. Now in the 
" Contemplations" of Sir Matthew Hale we have an essay 
on " The Good Steward," and a series of " Meditations" 
on the Lord's Prayer. And in those works of the learned 
and pious judge, we find the germs of Washington's great 
character. These works were his mother's manual when 
she was training him for the high destinies for which a 
supreme providence was preparing him. Here we have the 
very principles taught, and the very precepts inculcated, 
that were fitted to produce the traits characteristic of the 
American patriot. Moderation, self-control, sobriety, integ- 
rity, and a well-balanced judgment, and an habitual recog- 
nition of God's will and dependence on an overruling pro- 
vidence, have great prominence in the Briton's pages. And 
these are the very elements of Washington's character. 
More than one hundred times we find him in his letters, 
speaking of his dependence on God's providence. And 



238 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

throughout his life, we have " the composure of the Areo- 
pagus carried into the struggles of Thermopylae." The 
beauty and the glory of his character is its combination of 
integrity, moral goodness, heroic courage, with judicial 
sagacity and serenity amid all the fierce conflicts of a great 
and successful Kevolution. What mother is there, then, 
who is not willing to forego some, or all the pleasures of 
fashion, and spend her strength in teaching, and toiling, 
and praying for her child, seeing that it is given to her by 
the Great Father of all spirits, more than to any other, to unseal 
the fountain of its being and form the channel in which it 
is to flow for ever ? The mother's example and lessons are 
the passages of experimental divinity and social philosophy 
that are never forgotten. By them we both live and die. 
The tribute which one of our Chief Magistrates, John 
Quincy Adams, paid to his mother, expresses what almost 
every one feels to be true. " It is due," said he, " to grat- 
itude and nature, that I should acknowledge and avow that, 
such as I have been, whatever it was, such as I am, what- 
ever it is, and such as I hope to be in all futurity, must be 
ascribed, under providence, to the precepts, prayers, and 
example of my mother." 

Finally. We beseech you, young men, because you are 
strong, remember your responsibility for your influence upon 
society. You are invested with an immortality that you 
cannot lay aside. When you die and leave the world into 
which you have been born, your influence will walk the 
earth and represent you where you personally will be known 
no more. Aim then by God's help to be a fountain of good 
influences and not of evil. In Samson you have a solemn 
warning against the wiles of the strange woman, of whom 
Solomon has said : " I find more bitter than death the woman 
whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands are bands ; 



THE EPILOGUE AND ITS TEACHINGS. 239 

whoso pleaseth God shall escape from her; but the sinner 
shall be taken by her." 

Forget not your dedication to God, nor disappoint the 

just expectations of your friends. Ponder well what your 
country expects of you. Remember your patrimony and 
your age. Fill your minds with objects illustrious as your 
antecedents are hopeful. You are surrounded by living 
voices calling you to maintain the principles and faith of 
sires passed into glory. Put on the whole armour of light, 
and by self-control, and by high principles, and by an in- 
corruptible love for truth and for your country, rebuke 
whatever billows may arise to threaten the ark of your fa- 
thers, and make them roll at your feet soft as the swelling 
of a summer's sea. Serve well your generation according 
to the will of God, and then when you are laid to rest, 
though it be far from the home of your youth, and in dust 
that knoweth not the bones of your fathers, still you will 
rest in peace, and the everlasting God will be your eternal 
portion. Whatever good you do in the world will live 
and come home with its harvest of glory at the judgment 
day; and whatever evil you do, if not repented of and for- 
given, will go on increasing its guilt until it is garnered on 
your heart amid the awful realities of eternity. They that 
turn many to righteousness shall shine as the stars of the 
firmament for ever and ever ; and they that have turned 
many to evil shall burn as pyramids of fire, embosoming, 
like so many unquenchable molochs, the souls of those they 
have seduced from truth and innocence, and dragged down 
to ruin ; and the curses of all good men, and of all the holy 
angels, and of God Almighty, shall fall upon them for ever 
and ever. 

" AND THOU, MY SON, KNOW THOU THE GOD OP THY 
FATHER, AND SERVE HIM WITH A PERFECT HEART AND 



240 THE GIANT JUDGE. 

WITH A WILLING MIND : FOR THE LORD SEARCHETH 
ALL HEARTS, AND UNDERSTANDETH ALL THE IMAGINA- 
TIONS OP THE THOUGHTS : IP THOU SEEK HIM, HE WILL 



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